HINTS 



ON A 



SYSTEM 



OF 



POPULAR EDUCATION: 



ADDRESSED TO R. S. FIELD, ESQ. 

CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION IN THE LEGISLATURE OF NEW 
JERSEY ; AND TO 

THE REV. A. B. DOD, 

PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS IN THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 



/ 

BY E. C /wines, 

AUTHOR OF " TWO YEARS AND A HALF IN THE NAVY," 

AND LATE PRINCIPAL OF THE EDGEHILL SCHOOL. 



/ 

PHILADELPHIA: 
HOGAN AND THOMPSON, 

30 NORTH FOURTH STREET. 



1838. 



U C ^ 5 



t.^ (~. 



Entered, according to the act of Congress, by E. C. Wines, in the 
Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Penn- 
sylvania. 



C. SHERMAN AND CO., PRINTERS, 

19 St. James Street. 



PREFACE. 



Whoever writes a book, must write a pre- 
face. This is one of the laws of the trade: 
whether it is more honoured in the breach, or in 
the observance, it is not for us to decide. It is at 
least a time-honoured custom, from which we 
shall not, on the present occasion, hazard a de- 
parture. 

The Preface is generally an Author's Confes- 
sional; wherein he duly bepraises his own mo- 
desty, sets forth the hurry and various embarrass- 
ments under which his work was written, and 
then humbly craves absolution from the officiating 



8 PREFACE. 

priest, who is no other than that respectable and 
ever indulgent personage the Public. This is all 
very well, and it usually passes for — what it is 
worth. 

Though by no means insensible to the many 
deficiencies and imperfections which mark the fol- 
lowing production, the Author offers no apology for 
presenting it to his countrymen, and soliciting for 
it a candid perusal, and a dispassionate judgment, 
not so much on its literary merits, as on the prac- 
ticability and expediency of carrying out its 
views and recommendations. He holds that who- 
evei" publishes a book, which he does not at least 
hope will be useful, not only commits an act of 
consummate folly, but is guilty of a fraud of the 
worst kind. Nay, he is chargeable with a two- 
fold fraud. He deliberately plunders his fellow- 
men of both money and time, and is the more re- 
prehensible, inasmuch as his robbery detracts from 
our mental as well as our pecuniary resources. 

The work presented to the public in the follow- 
ing pages, is the result of much experience, and 



PREFACE. 9 

some reading and observation on the subject to 
which it relates. It would no doubt have been im- 
proved in style by a little more attention to that 
canon of Horace, wherein he enjoins long waiting 
and many a blot. But the Author writes for utility, 
rather than fame ; his object is to excite to sober 
reflection, rather than to amuse a vacant hour; 
and he trusts, therefore, that where his principles 
are approved, relating as they do to whatever im- 
parts dignity to character, stability to virtue, and 
refinement to happiness, minor defects will be 
overlooked, or treated with indulgence. 

It may be thought by some that I have dis- 
cussed the question of religious instruction too 
much in detail, and quoted too copiously on that 
point from other authors. Perhaps I have. If so, 
the unspeakable importance of the subject, and 
the unreasonable prejudices even of the good in 
relation to it, will, it is hoped, be considered a suf- 
ficient apology. 

Thus much it was perhaps fitting to say. Let 

1* 



10 PREFACE. 

this suffice. Without further preliminary, the 
Author "casts his bread upon the waters" with 
the earnest hope and prayer that he may " find 
it after many days." 

January 1, 1838. 



DEDICATION 



TO 



MESSRS. FIELD AND DOD. 



GENTLEMEN, 

I dedicate and address the following pages to you, 
not because I think them particularly worthy of 
your notice, nor yet for the purpose of enlightening 
you in reference to the subject, concerning which 
they treat. Whatever other errors I may have 
committed, I am at least guiltless of so gross a pre- 
sumption. 

I am actuated by a different motive. The occa- 
sion affords me an opportunity, which I gladly em- 
brace, of publicly expressing my personal regard, 
founded upon long intercourse, and of bearing testi- 



12 DEDICATION. 

mony to your zealous services in behalf of the cause 
of Popular Education. 

Shall I avow an additional naotive, rather selfish 
in its character ? The truth may as well be con- 
fessed. I hoped to impart a somewhat more lively 
air. to a treatise, destined, I fear, to be more repul- 
sive, in any form, to the generality of readers, than 
I could desire. 

You will perhaps inquire whether I expect you 
to become the advocates of the immediate adoption 
in practice of all the views I have attempted to en- 
force ? I answer frankly, no ; nor do I thus advo- 
cate them myself. I do not think it either expedient 
to make the attempt to the extent here intimated at 
the present time, or possible to accomphsh the ob- 
ject, if it were attempted. And this opinion, or 
something like it, I have expressed in the body of 
the work. My aim has been to trace the outHnes 
of such a system of public instruction as, in my 
judgment, every State in this Union ought, sooner 
or later, to adopt ; and one which, I am persuaded, 
all may ultimately secure, by the gradual operation 



DEDICATION. 13 

of moral causes, aided by judicious legislation. The 
standard I have sketched is high ; but nnay not the 
child be already in existence, who will see practical 
education fully up to it, if not even beyond 1 I 
should esteem the gift of foresight any thing but a 
blessing, if it revealed to me the certainty, that this 
would not be the case. At the same time I am free 
to declare that, if I were drawing a bill to present 
to any legislature in the United States at the present 
time, I would take good care to omit much that I 
have recommended in these Hints. 

If the principles herein advocated, and the sug- 
gestions hazarded, meet your enlightened approba- 
tion, if they are favourably received by my fellow 
citizens generally, and, more than ail, if they con- 
tribute in any degree to hasten the result so ardently 
desired, — the improvement and perfection of our 
common schools, — my highest ambition will have 
been satisfied. 

With the expression of a devout wish that your 
career of usefulness may be long and uninterrupted, 



14 DEDICATION. 

and that your labours in this cause, as well as others, 
may conduce alike to your own fame, and to the 
benefit of your country, and of mankind, I am. 

Gentlemen, 

Your friend and faithful servant. 

The Author. 
Princeton, New Jersey, January 1, 1838. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



NECESSITY OF POPULAR EDUCATION. DUTY OF 
EDUCATING THE PEOPLE. 

Importance of Popular Education — Object of the Work — Salu- 
tary Nature of the Contest beween Prejudice and the Spirit of 
Innovation — Precipitate Action to be avoided — The Duty of 
making Provision by Law for the Education bf the People — 
Influence of Education in elevating- the Character and pro- 
moting the Happiness of Nations — Comparison between Scot- 
land and Ireland — Oberlin and the Ban de la Roche — Influ- 
ence of Education on Families — Contrast between a well Edu- 
cated and an Ignorant Family — Foster's Picture of an Igno- 
rant Family — Influence of Education on Individuals — Pro- 
motes Personal Dignity and Happiness — Combe's Contrast 
between Savage and Civilised Man — Universal Education a 
Pecuniary Gain to a Country — First, by its Effect on Legisla- 
tion — Secondly, by diminishing Expensive Amusements and 
checking Sensual Indulgences — Thirdly, by diminishing the 
Spirit and consequently the Expense of Litigation — Fourthly, 
by its tendency to diminish Pauperism, and to lessen the 
number of Criminal Prosecutions — Fifthly, by increasing the 



16 CONTENTS. 

Capacity of each Individual in the Community, by enabling- 
him to turn his Powers to the best account, and by Prolonging 
the average Period of Human Existence — Sixth, by its ten- 
dency to quicken ingenuity, and thus to promote original 
inventions and Discoveries — and Seventh, by enabling men 
to push their Researches indefinitely into the Powers and 
Production of Physical Nature — Connexion of Popular Educa- 
tion with the Perpetuity of our Civil Institutions — Our Political 
Fabric encompassed with Dangers — Education the Remedy, 
the only adequate Safeguard — Summing up of the Argument in 
support of the Necessity of Popular Educntion, and the Duty 
of the State to provide for it. - - - 25-99 



CHAPTER II. 

BRANCHES OF STUDY PROPER FOR COMMON 
SCHOOLS. 

Preliminary Inquiry into the Nature and Object of Education — 
This Term, in its broadest sense, comprehends all the Influ- 
ences which act upon Man — These Influences ranged by Fos- 
ter under five Heads — A Sixth added — Education produces 
two classes of Effects — Important in both Aspects, and why — 
Object of Education — Complex Nature of Man must be consi- 
dered — His Relations must be understood — These Relations 
pointed out — His Destination — His Relations and Destina- 
tion indicate the Education suited to his Nature — Education 
should be such as to develope our Powers, communicate useful 



CONTENTS. 17 

Knowledge, and form the Disposition and the Habit of Virtue 
— A System of Popular Education should prescribe a Course 
of Study — Text-Books prescribed by Law in Saxe Weimar — 
Analytical Description of them — Course of Study enjoined by 
Law upon the Primary Schools of Prussia — The Prussian sys- 
tem decried in an Article in the first Number of the Democra- 
tic Review — Sophistry of the Argument, and Illiberality of 
the Attack — Our Common Schools compared with those of 
Saxe Weimar and Prussia — Their Inferiority — Limited Course 
of Studies — Superficial Nature of the Instructions given — In- 
difference of Parents — A Fundamental Reform necessary — 
List of Studies should be extended — Instruction should be 
made more thorough — Enumeration of Branches proper to be 
introduced into Common Schools — Objection to the Course re- 
commended " that it would consume too much time," answer- 
ed — The Author's Views confirmed by the Course of Study re- 
commended by Dick — Necessity of Moral and Religious In- 
struction insisted upon more at large — ^Religious Education 
the Foundation of all good Character — Essential to the full 
Advantage of Intellectual Education — Objection to the Intro- 
duction of Religious Instruction into Popular Schools — Not 
founded in Reason — Government owes Christianity a heavy 
Debt, and is bound, as far as possible, to discharge it — The 
awakening of Sectarian Jealousies apprehended — Method by 
which these are allayed in Prussia — Can it not be done in this 
Country ? — Weight of Autliority in favour of Religious In- 
struction in Schools — Opinions of Simpson, Bulwer, Cousin, 
and Dick, on this Question — The objection to Universal Edu- 
cation, " that it would raise the Labouring Classes above their 
Sphere," considered and answered — Objection to the Plan re- 
commended founded on the Principle " that each Parent ought 

2 



18 CONTENTS. 

to educate his own Children" — This Objection based on Sel- 
fishness — A just Comprehension of the Selfish Principle itself 
refutes it. 100-148 



CHAPTER III. 

QUALIFICATION OF TEACHERS. 

Importance of this point — Our present Deficiency in well qualified 
Instructors — Classes of Men who chiefly engage in this busi- 
ness — Motives which actuate them — Their ignorance — Inade- 
quate Views of Parents — Anecdotes illustrative of this — A 
Teacher in the Ban de la Roche — Empirical Methods of In- 
struction — Inefficiency in Government — Its Cause — School- 
Teaching for the most part a Temporary Business — Some 
Exceptions to the above Remarks — Bad effects of the present 
State of Things on Teachers and Pupils — Our general Intel- 
ligence as a Nation admitted — Not attributable to our Popular 
Schools — Its true Causes pointed out — Glorious Results 
might be looked for from the Union of these Causes and 
a well organized System of Popular Education — Conditions of 
such a System — Provision for the Education of Teachers a 
most important Condition — Practical Error of Parents in this 
Matter — Deplorable Effect of it — Teaching must be made a 
Profession, and become respectable — No office more truly 
honourable than that of an Instructor — Its present degradation 
— Must be raised to its proper Rank — This can be effected only 
by the Establishment of Teachers' Seminaries — Institutions 
of this Kind the intellectual Want of the Age — Prussia al- 



CONTENTS. 19 

ready supplied with them — Reference to son^e other Countries 
— Origin and History of these Institutions — Their great Import- 
ance — They are the Life-Blood of an efficient System of Popu- 
lar Education — Their Necessity insisted on by all Writers on 
both sides of the Atlantic — Extract from the Edinburgh Re- 
view on this Subject — The question examined whether these 
Seminaries should be connected with other Institutions, or 
exist under a separate Organization — Three Reasons for prefer- 
ring the latter Plan — Its effect would be better, first, on the 
character of the Teacher ; secondly, on their Respectability ; 
thirdly, on their Education — General Principles of Organiza- 
tion — Two leading Results to be aimed at — good Teachers 
and some security that they will exercise their Profession in 
the State where educated — Details more difficult — The lights of 
Experience wanting among us — Must look to Prussia for 
Model Schools— Conduct of Men in Parallel Cases in the ordi- 
nary Business of Life— Propriety and Utility of sending 
Agents to examine and report upon the Prussian Schools. 149- 
185. 



CHAPTER IV. 

COMPENSATION OF TEACHERS. 

Present inadequate Compensation of Teachers — No Class in the 
Community so poorly rewarded — Wages of Mechanics and 
other Manual-Labourers as compared with the pay of School- 
Masters — Compensation of Instructers as indicated by the 



20 CONTENTS. 

School-Returns of Massachusetts and New York — Alarming 
Nature of the Facts disclosed by these Returns — Manifold 
Evils of this ill-judged Parsimony — Examination into the 
Claims of Competent and Faithful Teachers to receive a libe- 
ral Reward — Justice requires it — Sound Policy requires it — 
Teachers should be supplied with the Means of maintaining a 
Family — The Question, what would be a fair average Salary ? 
considered — Inquiry into the Cost of the System recommend- 
ed — Twenty Millions a Year for the Whole United States — 
This Sum compared with the Object in View and the Advan- 
tages that would result from the Attainment of the Object — 
Whence is the Money to come? — This Question dispassionate- 
ly answered — First, from the Annual Proceeds arising from 
the Sale of Public Lands — Secondly, from the Interest of the 
Surplus Revenue deposited with the States — Thirdly, from the 
Avails of present and additional Grants of Land for this Pur- 
pose — These three Sources would give ten Millions a Year — 
The other ten Millions to be raised by the Districts them- 
selves — Those who refuse, to receive none of the Public 
Money — Present Endowments — Bequests — The Nation ex- 
pends liberally for less important Objects — Florida War — 
Last War with Great Britain — Astounding Fact in relation to 
the Cost of the Wars in which England was concerned be- 
tween 1688 and 1815 — Enough to Educate the whole World 
to the End of Time — Poverty and Economy of Nations when 
Education is to be provided for — Our Parsimony in main- 
taining Schools a National Disgrace — A more liberal Compen- 
sation to Schoolmasters essential to an efficient Education of 
the People — The necessary Expenditure really small in Com- 
parison with our Resources and the Vastness of the Object to 
be gained. 186-204 



CONTENTS. 21 

CHAPTER V. 

BOOKS, CABINETS, AND APPARATUS— LOCATION 
AND ARCHITECTURE OF SCHOOL HOUSES. 

Aversion of Children to Study — Knowledge the natural Food of 
the Mind — Misdirected Love of Knowledge the Occasion of 
the Fall of Man — Pleasures of Knowledge exemplified in the 
Cases of Archimedes and Sir Isaac Newton — Solution of the 
apparent Contradiction involved in the general Aversion to 
Study and the innate Love of Knowledge — Attributable to the 
Want of good School-Books and the Prevalence of bad Me- 
thods of Instruction — Any other Explanation would impugn 
the Wisdom and Goodness of God — Decision of Reason on 
this Point — Testimony of Experience — Various Cases referred 
to — Letter of a Young Man mentioned by Mr. Combe — 
Branches of Learning pursued in German Boarding-Schools 
— The Teacher the Friend of his Pupils — Inspection and 
Explanation of Machinery — Pedestrian Excursions into the 
Country — Last several Weeks — Pupils required to v^'rite Jour- 
nals — The Author's own Practice while Principal of the Edge- 
bill School — Its Results — Improvements made in School-Books 
of late Years — Higher Improvements needed — Difficulty of 
preparing Text-Books of a proper Character — Requires a high 
Order of Talent and great Learning and Experience — Gene- 
ral Principles on which all School-Books should be constructed 
— Class-Books now in use compared with this Standard — 
Verbal Instruction instead of real — Philosophy of the Infant 
Mind should be studied — The Leadings of Nature followed — 
Lessons on Objects — Biographies — Stories of Real Life — Im- 
portance of Truth — Reading — Books on Natural History and 



22 CONTENTS. 

cognate Sciences — Misapprehension guarded against — Mis- 
cellaneous Library — Of what Classes of Works to be composed 
— Cabinets of Natural History — Chemical and Philosophical 
Apparatus — Influence of these Aids — Location and Architec- 
ture of School-houses — Objects of Importance — Present De- 
fects — Improvements recommended. - - 205-224 



CHAPTER VI. 

GENERALORGANIZATION— OBSTACLES— EN- 
COURAGEMENTS. 

A good Organic Constitution necessary to the efficiency of a sys- 
tem of Popular Education — A Consideration of the Objects to 
be accomplished by it necessary to its Formation — -Various 
Officers essential — Their Services should be remunerated — 
Organization should be as simple as possible — Superintendent 
of Public Instruction — County Commissioners — Trustees for 
Townships — School Inspectors — Their various Duties — Means 
for securing Regular Attendance of Pupils, and Fidelity and 
Teachers — Diffidence with which these Suggestions are made 
— Consideration of Obstacles — Indifference of the People — 
Various Proofs of it — Lagging Legislation — Feebleness of Vo- 
luntary Associations — Periodicals on Education unsupported 
— Difficulty of removing this Indifference — Admitted Costli 
ness a great Obstacle — Ought not to be — Friends of Educa- 
tion must be content to labour for remote Results — Obstacles 
arising from Points in our Social System, and Traits in our 



CONTENTS. 23 

National Character — The Lust of Wealth and the Leaven of 
Ag-itation hinder Reform — Multiplication and Intermingling 
of Religious Sects a Hindrance — Remoteness and Impalpable 
nature of the Benefits to be gained a great Impediment — Our 
duty to provide for Posterity— This duty plainly written on the 
Creator's Plan — Pleasure arising from its Performance — En- 
couragements — Indifference giving way — Much has been al- 
ready accomplished — Formation of Lyceums — Example of 
other Countries — Popular Education not a Political Question 
— The Press unanimous in its Favour— Concluding Appeal to 
Statesmen and Legislators. - . « 225-255 



HINTS 



ON 



POPULAR EDUCATION. 



CHAPTER I. 

NECESSITY OF POPULAR EDUCATION. DUTY 
OF EDUCATING THE PEOPLE. 

Importance of Popular Education — Object of the Work — Salu- 
tar}'^ Nature of the Contest between Prejudice and the Spirit 
of Innovation — Precipitate Action to be avoided — The Duty 
of making Provision by Law for the Education of the People 
— Influence of Education in elevating the Character and pro- 
moting the Happiness of Nations — Comparison between 
Scotland and Ireland — Oberlin and the Ban de la Roche — 
Influence of Education on Families — Contrast between a 
well Educated and an Ignorant Family — Foster's Picture of 
an Ignorant Family — Influence of Education on Individuals 
— Promotes Personal Dignity and Happiness — Combe's con- 
trast between Savage and Civilized Man — Universal Educa- 
tion a Pecuniary Gain to a Country — First, by its EiFect on 
Legislation — Secondly, by diminishing Expensive Amuse- 
ments and checking Sensual Indulgences — Thirdly, by di- 
minishing the Spirit and consequently the Expense of Liti- 
gation — Fourthly, by its tendency to diminish Pauperism, 
and to lessen the number of Criminal Prosecutions — Fifthly, 
by increasing the Capacity of each Individual in the Com- 

3 



26 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Importance of Popular Education. Object of the Work. 

munity, by enabling him to turn his Powers to the best ac- 
count, and by Prolonging the average Period of Human 
Existence — Sixth, by its tendency to quicken Ingenuity, and 
thus to promote original Inventions and Discoveries — and 
Seventh, by enabling Men to push their Researches indefi- 
nitely into the Powers and Productions of Physical Nature 
— Connexion of Popular Education with the Perpetuity of 
our Civil Institutions — Our Political Fabric encompassed with 
Dangers — Education the Remedy, the only adequate Safe- 
guard — Summing up of the Argument in support of the 
Necessity of Popular Education, and the Duty of the State 
to provide for it, 

Gentlemen : — 

The subject of Popular Education has excited 
considerable interest of late years not only among 
the people, but in the legislatures, of many of the 
States of this Union. No subject can more wor- 
thily occupy the thoughts, or call into action the 
energies of our citizens, in their individual or 
social capacity. The cause of education is em- 
phatically the cause of the people. Its importance 
transcends and overshadows that of most, if not 
all, others, which fall within the scope of legisla- 
tive action. It is identified with the cause of 
morality and religion, with the true glory and 
prosperity of the nation, and with all the most 
important interests of society. To exhibit its 
importance, to point out some of the deficiencies 
of our existing systems of education, and to pre- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 27 



Contest between Prejudice and the spirit of Innovation. 



sent some views as to the degree of perfection at 
which we ought to aim, and ultimately to arrive, 
is the object of the following pages. The subject 
will not be treated in detail. The author will 
confine himself, conformably to what is intimated 
in the title-page, to a few practical " hints" in re- 
lation to it ; which, however, he hopes will meet 
with your approval, and with the general appro- 
bation of his countrymen, and which, in all mo- 
desty, he commends to your and their candid 
consideration ; more on account of the magnitude 
of the subject and the greatness of the interests 
involved, than for any peculiar merit he supposes 
they may possess as a literary production. 

Between the prejudice which clings with unre- 
laxing grasp to whatever enjoys the sanction of 
age, and the spirit of innovation which would 
prostrate with Vandal fury every long established 
institution and usage, the contest that ever has 
been and ever must be maintained, is in the 
highest degree salutary. In the great moral and 
political changes which have taken place in the 
w^orld, especially those in free states — there have 
been for the most part three classes of agents ; 
those who could see no good in any thing new, 
those who were equally blind to the excellence of 
all that was old, and those who have occupied a 
middle ground, giving to the arguments of each 



28 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Illustrated by the History of various Nations. 

of the other parties their just weight, and willing 
to retain the gold and reject the dross in recon- 
structing any of the elements of society. 

This, it is needless to inform you, was eminent- 
ly characteristic of political parties in the several 
states of ancient Greece, and in the Roman Com- 
monwealth. The history of politics in the repub- 
lics of modern Italy, in France and England, and 
in various other countries both of Europe and 
America, affords many and striking examples of 
the same tendency in human nature. It is well 
that it is so. This, like all the other moral laws 
of the Creator, bears the impress of matchless wis- 
dom and benevolence. For, while the obstinately 
prejudiced and the madly revolutionary are en- 
gaged in hot strife with each other, the one 
party for the old as it is, the other for the substitu- 
tion of something entirely new, the mass of the 
people, almost always averse to violent innova- 
tions, but roused by the fierce din with which 
they are assailed, are incited to inquire, " What is 
the occasion of all this turmoil? Why such 
fierce contention? What abuses are to be cor- 
rected? What institutions modified? What changes 
wrought?" The representative intelligence of this 
class, bringing to the examination of these ques- 
tions broader views and cooler feelings, is ena- 
bled to discriminate and weigh the arguments of 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 29 

Precipitancy to be avoided. 

each party, and, by the adoption of suitable mea- 
sures, to effect such gradual improvements as the 
exigencies of the times seem either to require or 
justify. 

There is not, I am aware, so much danger of 
excess in organizing a system of common schools, 
and therefore not so much necessity for incul- 
cating moderation in reference to it, as there would 
be with respect to some other measures ; still it is 
well to understand and avoid the evils of precipi- 
tancy. Bad as the systems adopted in many of 
the states confessedly are, and inadequate, as all 
are admitted to be, they may be made much worse 
by hasty and ill-judged legislation. Time, — much 
time, is necessary both for making the proper in- 
vestigations as to the best plans of operation, and 
for preparing the minds of the people for all those 
ameliorations, which are demanded by the spirit 
of the age, and the circumstances of our country. 
Changes, good in themselves, are, when too sud- 
denly effected, frequently attended with conse- 
quences more or less to be deplored. Festina 
lente, the celebrated motto of Augustus Caesar, 
is on the whole a sound maxim in reference to any 
great undertaking, though capable of being abused 
to cloak indifference, or to justify inaction. 

With these observations by way of introduc- 
tion, I proceed to present some views, not alto- 

3* 



30 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Popular Education a public Duty. 

gether, it is hoped, inappropriate at the present 
time, on several points which seem to require con- 
sideration in organising a general system of popu- 
lar education. 

The first topic to which I ask your attention, and 
that of the public, is the duty of making adequate 
provision by law for the thorough instruction of 
all the children in the community. From a variety 
of arguments that might be urged in support of 
this position, I shall select only three, which seem 
to me sufficient to estabhsh it to the satisfaction of 
every candid mind. Popular education is neces- 
sary, and therefore it is the duty of the several 
states to provide for it ; first, because of its influ- 
ence on national and individual character and hap- 
piness ; secondly, because of its bearing on the 
pecuniary interests of the country ; and thirdly, 
because of its connexion with the purity and per- 
petuity of our civil institutions. 

That education, based on Christianity, is adapted 
to elevate the character and promote the happi- 
ness of its possessors, is a position which it cannot 
require any laboured argument to prove, in the 
nineteenth century, to the citizens of the United 
States. It is a truth attested by universal expe- 
rience, and capable of complete demonstration. 
Were I addressing a popular assembly on this sub- 
ject, I would say to them, — Cast your eyes abroad 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 31 



Its Influence on National Character and Happiness. 



on the world ; consult time past and present ; com- 
pare nations, families, and individuals respectively 
with each other ; — your survey will lead you to 
this irresistible conclusion, that education, impreg- 
nated with the principles of true religion, is every 
where the great promoter of whatsoever things 
are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever 
things are pure, lovely, and of good report ; that 
it is the parent of virtue, industry, and order ; that 
it is essential to the full benefits of gospel preach- 
ing ; and that the want of it is the principal cause 
of the extreme profligacy, improvidence, and 
misery, which are so prevalent among the labour- 
ing classes in many countries. 

A comparison between the Irish and Scottish 
peasantry would of itself be sufficient to establish 
this general fact. Among the former we behold 
little else than sloth, destitution, and crime ; among 
the latter, even those who are in the worst com- 
parative circumstances, a degree of comfort, the 
fruit of industry and order, is every where conspi- 
cuous. To what is this difference to be ascribed? 
The Irish possess as vigorous constitutions, and 
are as capable of enduring hard labour, as the 
Scotch. In the two great physical elements of 
prosperity, soil and chmate, Ireland has a clear 
and decided advantage over Scotland. The differ- 
ence, then, making every allowance which truth 



32 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Comparison between the Scotch and Irish. 

and candour can require for the evils of misgovern- 
ment in the former country, is owing to the preva- 
lence of intellectual and moral culture in the one 
case, and the want of it in the other. No other 
cause can be named, adequate to the production of 
the effect ; and consequently to assign any other 
w^ould be, as you, gentlemen, well know, to violate 
one of the first principles of philosophy. In Ire- 
land the education of the poor is deplorably 
neglected ; few of them can either read or write ; 
and almost all are ignorant of nearly every thing 
that it most befits a rational and accountable crea- 
ture to understand. In Scotland an order of things 
exists essentially difl^erent. It is rare to meet w-ith 
a person there who has not some education; 
schools exist in every parish ; and the means of 
knowledge are brought within the reach of the 
lowest classes. The result, in each case, is such 
as has been already described ; and such as must 
always take place under like circumstances. 

The most illustrious example, with which I am 
acquainted, of the elevating and humanizing influ- 
ence of Christian education on communities, is 
exhibited in the history of those mountain parishes 
in the Ban de la Roche under the pastoral care of 
the celebrated Oberlin — a name embalmed in 
every philanthropic and pious heart. He who 
attentively reads the simple narrative of the life 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 33 

Oberlin— The Ban de la Roche. 

and labours of that great and good man, will gain 
more true instruction than he would by wading 
through whole folios of theology, metaphysics, and 
political economy. He will there behold a trans- 
formation, as wonderful as the scenes of an East- 
ern romance, wrought, within the brief period of 
a few years, in the character and condition of a 
whole community. He will see it rescued from 
the accumulated evils of ignorance, vice, and po- 
verty, and raised to the enjoyment of all the bless- 
ings of knowledge, virtue, and competence. He 
will perceive industry, order, contentment, and all 
the social and moral virtues, enthroned in the 
heart and shining in the life, where but a few 
years before the whole social fabric was the sport 
and prey of every capricious and malignant pas- 
sion. He will behold, in short, a desolate wilder- 
ness, over which a gloom like the pall of death 
had brooded for centuries, suddenly converted into 
the garden of the Lord, with the freshness of Eden 
covering the scene, and the smile of heaven gilding 
the prospect. He will learn also the moral of the 
whole story — the means by which this amazing 
revolution was effected. And what were they ? 
Learning and Religion — those guardian angels 
that watch, wdth spirits ever wakeful and benig- 
nant, over the happiness of mortals. Christian 
Education was the sole source of the change, and 
of all the blessings which followed in its train. 



34 ' HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Influence of Education on Families. 

Education is not less benign in its influence on 
families than on communities. Few contrasts can 
be imagined stronger than that which exists 
between an enlightened and well ordered Christian 
family, and one enveloped in the dank and misty 
and putrid atmosphere of ignorance ; between the 
dignity, refinement, and happiness, which mark 
the domestic relations on the one side, and the bru- 
tal passions and haggard wretchedness, that reign 
with undisputed and terrific sway on the other. 
Foster, in his excellent Essay on the Evils of Popu- 
lar Ignorance, has sketched, with his usual power, 
an appalling picture of the ferocity and misery of 
a family destitute of religious and mental culture. 
After describing such a family — the menaces and 
imprecations of the parents, and their want of re- 
sources for engaging and occupying, for amusing 
and instructing, the younger minds ; and the strife, 
rudeness, and insubordination of the children — he 
adds : — 

"Now, imagine a week, month, or year, of the 
intercourse in such a domestic society, the course 
of talk, the mutual manners, and the progress of 
mind and character; where there is a sense of 
drudgery approaching to that of slavery, in the 
unrelenting necessity of labour, where there is 
none of the interest of imparting knowledge or re- 
ceiving it, or of reciprocating knowledge that has 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 35 

Picture of an ignorant Family. 

been imparted and received ; where there is not 
an acre, if we might express it so, of intellectual 
space around them, clear of the thick universal fog 
of ignorance, where, especially, the luminaries of 
the spiritual heaven, the attributes of the Almighty, 
the grand phenomenon of redeeming mediation, 
the solemn realities of a future state and another 
world, are totally obscured in that shade ; where 
the conscience and the discriminations of duty are 
dull and indistinct, from the youngest to the oldest ; 
where there is no genuine respect felt or shown on 
the one side, nor affection unmixed with vulgar petu- 
lance and harshness, expressed perhaps in wicked 
imprecations on the other; where a mutual coarse- 
ness of manners and language has the effect, with- 
out their being aware of it as a cause, of debasing 
their worth in one another's esteem all round ; and 
where, notwithstanding all, they absolutely must 
pass a great deal of time together, to converse, 
and to display their dispositions towards one ano- 
ther, and exemplify what the primary relations of 
life are reduced to, when divested of all that is to 
give them dignity, endearment, and conducive- 
ness to the highest advantage of existence. 

" Home has but little to please the young mem- 
bers of such a family, and a great deal to make 
them eager to escape out of the house ; which is 
also a welcome riddance to the elder persons, 



36 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Strife between Parents and Children. 

when it is not in neglect or refusal to perform the 
ordinary allotments of labour. So little is the feel- 
ing of a peaceful cordiality created among them 
by their seeing one another all within the habita- 
tion, that, not unfrequently, the passer-by may 
learn the fact of their collective number being 
there, from the sound of a low strife of mingled 
voices, some of them betraying youth replying in 
anger or contempt,*to maturity or age. It is 
wretched to see how early this liberty is boldly 
taken. As the children perceive nothing in the 
minds of their parents that should awe them into 
deference, the most important difference left be- 
tween them is that of physical strength. The chil- 
dren, if of hardy disposition, to which they are 
perhaps trained in battles with their juvenile rivals, 
soon show a certain degree of daring against this 
superior strength. And as the difference lessons, 
and by the time it has nearly ceased, what is so 
natural as that they should assume equality, in 
manners, and in following their own will ? But 
equality assumed where there should be subordina- 
tion, inevitably involves contempt toward the par- 
ty against whose claim it is asserted. 

" The relative condition of such parents as they 
sink into old age, is most deplorable. And all that 
has preceded leads, by a natural course, to that 
consequence which we have sometimes beheld. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 37 

Deplorable Condition of such Parents in old Ago. 

with feelings emphatically gloomy, — the almost 
perfect indifference with which the descendants, 
and a few other near relatives, of a poor old man 
of this class, could consign him to the grave. A 
human being was gone out of the world, a being 
whom they had been near all their lives, some of 
them sustained in their childhood by his labours, 
and yet not one heart, at any one moment, felt the 
sentiment — I have lost [a father or a friend.] They 
never could regard him with respect, and their 
miserable education had not taught them humanity 
enough to regard him in his declining days as an 
object of pity. Some decency of attention was 
perhaps shown him, or perhaps not, in his last 
hours. It is a very melancholy spectacle to see an 
ignorant, thoughtless father, surrounded by his 
untaught children, at the sight of whom our 
thought thus silently accosts him: The event 
which will take you finally from among them, per- 
haps after forty or fifty years of intercourse with 
them, will leave no more impression on their affec- 
tions, than the cutting down of a decayed old tree 
in the neighbourhood of your habitation." 

This, it must be confessed, is a high-wrought 
and most melancholy picture, but who shall say 
that it is exaggerated ? Owing to the general dif- 
fusion among us of some degree of intellectual 
cultivation and religious knowledge and influence, 

4 



38 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Originals not wanting among us. 

originals are not, indeed, as common in this coun- 
try as in some others ; but the memory of many 
persons will doubtless recall scenes and histories, 
which might be truly described or narrated in the 
words of the preceding extracts. And just in 
proportion as the lights of knowledge and the in- 
fluences of religion are wanting in families, in the 
same proportion will their domestic intercourse 
approach towards a realization of that dreadful 
representation just presented, and sketched by a 
sagacious observer of mankind, as a faithful pic- 
ture of the effect of ignorance on the family circle. 

The converse of this proposition is also unques- 
tionably true. Christian education, in proportion 
as it sheds its genial influence on that interesting 
class of communities now under consideration, 
will always have the eflfect to exalt, refine, and 
hallow the domestic relations ; to convert them into 
unfailing sources of the purest enjoyment; and to 
render them conducive to the highest end of our 
being. 

Personal dignity of character and individual 
happiness are not promoted in a less degree by 
sound education, than national and social elevation 
and felicity. Silly atheistical ranters, it is true, are 
occasionally to be met with, who, in their impious 
ravings, elevate savage over civilized life; but none 
but a fool, a knave, or a madman, would contend 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 39 

Influence of Education on Individuals. 

that the barbarian warrior numbering his scalps, 
or the ignorant drone in civilized countries, whose 
pleasures are justly described by Paley as scarcely 
superior to those of the oyster, are to be placed on 
the same level in these respects with Newton in- 
vestigating the laws that bind the planets in their 
orbits ; with Locke, affixing their just limits to the 
powers of the human mind; with Franklin, teach- 
ing the lightning to obey his will ; with Milton, 
soaring to the loftiest regions of poetry ; or with 
Wilberforce, shaking the British senate with his 
eloquence. 

These, it is granted, are extreme cases; never- 
theless they are strictly pertinent to the argument. 
But let us descend to the lower walks of hfe, and 
see how we shall find it there. What is it that 
constitutes the real man ? and where is the seat of 
happiness, properly so called ? Is it this corporeal 
frame, which is destined to " perish in the using?" 
or is it the ethereal essence that dwells within it — 
this spirit, formed for thought, knowledge, and im- 
mortality ? You, gentlemen, and all other intelli- 
gent men, will, with united voice, answer — The 
latter — and this response does but echo a senti- 
ment every where inscribed on the pages of the 
sacred record. 

Happiness cannot be predicated of the senses; 
it is of too ethereal a nature to dwell in any but a 
spiritual substance. But the mass of mankind 



40 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Elevates the Pleasures of the labouring Classes. 

cannot devote themselves to literary and scientific 
pursuits. Bodily labour is the inheritance of sin. 
We are not merely to eat bread, but we are to eat 
it in the " sweat of our brow;" we may enjoy the 
earth indeed, but only on the condition of first 
" subduing it." But the benevolent Author of our 
being, though justice required the execution of the 
threatened curse, has so arranged the order of 
things, that most manual employments do not de- 
mand the whole attention of those engaged in 
them ; they leave a considerable portion of time, 
even during the hours of labour, when the thoughts 
can be usefully, worthily, and delightfully employ- 
ed on other subjects. 

This brings us to the point at which I have been 
aiming. Which of two labouring men has the ad- 
vantage over the other in point of real dignity and 
enjoyment — he whose intellect, in the strong lan- 
guage of the writer above quoted, " suffers a dull 
absorption, subsides into the mere physical nature, 
is sunk and sleeping in the animal warmth and 
functions, and lulled and rocked, as it were, in its 
lethargy, by the bodily movements in the works 
which it is not necessary for it to keep habitually 
awake to direct?" Or he whose mind is in some 
degree furnished with a knowledge of past and 
contemporary occurrences, with examples of ele- 
vated virtue from sacred and profane history, and 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 41 

Affords a Resource for their leisure Hours. 

with an acquaintance with some of the powers of 
nature, and the causes of those physical phenome- 
na which every where surround him, and wiiich 
are constantly beheld by the ignorant herd without 
emotion or instruction, and regarded as merely 
common though unintelligible facts ? No person 
of ordinary intelligence can hesitate in deciding 
this point. The latter is incomparably superior 
to the former in the respects here indicated. 
While his hands are mechanically employed on 
their wonted tasks, his thoughts can feed upon the 
knowledge accumulated within. He can thence 
extract sweet and elevating reflections to beguile 
the toilsome hours, if he is alone; or interesting 
anecdotes and useful facts, if others are with him, 
to enliven the labours of the day, and to amuse or 
instruct those of his companions whose minds are 
less cultivated than his own. 

The advantage he possesses is still greater during 
those intervals of labour which occur through the 
w^eek, and that longer interval afforded by the 
Christian Sabbath. During these periods, persons 
without any of the resources of knowledge, if they 
are of a phlegmatic temperament, generally pass 
the time in utter inanity; either sleeping it off 
their hands, or sunk into a listless unreflecting dul- 
ness, in which their minds are far less active than 

in actual sleep : or, if they are of a more lively 

4# 



42 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Confers a certain Nobility of Ciiaracter. 

turn, they betake themselves to all sorts of coarse 
and vulgar merriment, the profane scoff, the ribald 
jest, the blackguard repartee ; or they take refuge 
in those gross sensual pleasures, which are more 
hurtful both to themselves and others, than utter 
vacuity of thought and emotion. Not so with men 
in whom the seeds of knowledge and religion 
were sown, and took root in early childhood, gra- 
dually shooting up into plants, which have since 
been constantly expanding and unfolding their 
beauties to the sun, and whose fruit now appears 
in all its fair proportions, engaging colours, and 
mellow ripeness. Reading, meditation, innocent 
amusements, and elevating social pleasures, fill up 
the leisure hours of such men ; and the Sabbath, 
— that distinctive and glorious feature in the Chris- 
tian economy, — is devoted to occupations, alike 
profitable to themselves and pleasing to its Author. 
Education, conducted upon sound and compre- 
hensive principles, confers even upon the poor a 
quickness of conscience, a strength of principle, a 
liveliness of sympathy, an erectness, independence, 
and, as it were, nobility of character, which place 
them on an eminence, whence they can look down 
on the misery and degradation of the multitudes 
that throng the cheerless vales of ignorance be- 
low. They are often elevated to a region far 
above the clouds and storms, which darken the 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 43 



Milton's Picture of the Seraph Abdiel. 



horizon, and oppress the hearts of the less intelli- 
gent and virtuous of their fellow-creatures. They 
stand in a relation to these somewhat analogous 
to the position occupied by the loyal Seraph in re- 
ference to the recreant crew of angels, by whom 
he was surrounded and solicited to rebelUon. His 
glorious independence, courage, and strength and 
elevation of purpose, are portrayed in the follow- 
ing beautiful lines from Paradise Lost. 

" So spake the Seraph Abdiel, faithful found 
Among the faithless, faithful only he ; 
Among innumerable false, unmoved, 
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, 
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal ; 
Nor number nor example with him wrought 
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind, 
Though single. From amidst them forth he passed. 
Long way through hostile scorn, which he sustained 
Superior, nor of violence feared aught; 
And, with retorted scorn, his back he turned 
On those proud towers to swift destruction doomed." 

The advantages of education are thus forcibly 
summed up and set forth by the eloquent Robert 
Hall, in his sermon on that subject. "Know- 
ledge," says he, " expands the mind, exalts the fa- 
culties, refines the taste of pleasure, and opens 
numerous sources of intellectual enjoyment. By 
means of it we become less dependent for satisfac- 



44 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Pleasure annexed to the pursuit of Truth. 

tion on the sensitive appetites, the gross pleasures 
of sense are more easily despised, and we are 
made to feel the superiority of the spiritual to the 
material part of our nature. Instead of being con- 
tinually solicited by the influence and irritation of 
sensible objects, the mind can retire within her- 
self, and expatiate in the cool and quiet walks of 
contemplation. The Author of Nature has wisely 
annexed a pleasure to the exercise of our active 
powers, especially to the pursuit of truth, which, 
if it be in some instances less intense, is far more 
durable than the gratifications of sense, and is on 
that account, to say nothing of its other proper- 
ties, incomparably more valuable. It may be re- 
peated without satiety, and pleases afresh on every 
reflection upon it. These are self-created satis- 
factions, always within our reach, not dependent 
upon events, and not requiring a peculiar combi- 
nation of circumstances to produce or maintain 
them. Let the mind but retain its proper func- 
tions, and they spring up spontaneously, unsolicit- 
ed, unborrowed, and unbought." 

" Man, ignorant and uncivilized, is a ferocious, 
sensual, and superstitious savage. The external 
world affords some enjoyment to his animal feel- 
ings, but it confounds his moral and intellectual 
faculties. External nature exhibits to his mind a 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 45 

Contrast between savage and civilized Man. 

mighty chaos of events, and a dread display of 
power. The chain of causation appears too intri- 
cate to be unravelled, and the power too stupen- 
dous to be controlled. Order and beauty, indeed, 
occasionally gleam forth to his eye, from detached 
portions of creation, and seem to promise happi- 
ness and joy ; but, more frequently, clouds and 
darkness brood over the scene, and disappoint 
his fondest expectations. Evil seems so mixed 
up with good, that he regards it either as its direct 
product, or its inseparable accompaniment. Na- 
ture is never contemplated with a clear percep- 
tion of its adaptation to the purpose of promoting 
the true enjoyment of man, or with a well-founded 
confidence in the wisdom and benevolence of its 
Author. Man, when civilized and illuminated by 
knowledge, on the other hand, discovers in the ob- 
jects and occurrences around him a scheme beau- 
tifully arranged for the gratification of his whole 
powers, animal, moral, and intellectual; he recog- 
nises in himself the intelligent and accountable 
subject of an all-bountiful Creator, and in joy and 
gladness desires to study the Creator's works, to 
ascertain his laws, and to yield to them a steady 
and a willing obedience. Without undervaluing 
the pleasures of his animal nature, he tastes the 
higher, more refined, and more endui'ing delights 
of his moral and intellectual capacities, and he 



46 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

This vantage-ground may be surrendered. 

then calls aloud for education as indispensable to 
the full enjoyment of his rational powers."* 

These are the grounds on which the advocates 
of this cause have usually and mainly rested its 
claims. And they are sufficient to sustain it tri- 
umphantly against all the assaults of its enemies. 
But the tendency of education to increase the hap- 
piness of society, and to elevate man to his proper 
dignity by causing the intellect and the moral 
feelings to predominate over the senses, is a van- 
tage-ground which may be surrendered ; and we 
may boldly meet the opposers of universal educa- 
tion on the broad position, that, so far as the ac- 
quisition of individual and national wealth is con- 
cerned, it is man's most efficient ally. The only 
objection that can be urged w^ith any show of 
reason against the most thorough national educa- 
tion, is its expensiveness. Now, if it can be 
shown that such a liberal provision as will secure 
the benefits of sound instruction to all the people, 
is a nation's best economy, " we not only" — to 
borrow the strong language of President Young — 
" plant our foot on the objection and crush it to 
atoms, but we construct on its very ruins the 
strongest argument in behalf of our system — 
an argument directed to the self-interest of the 

* Combe on Education. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 47 



Universal Education a Pecuniary Gain. 



community — an argument that appeals to one of 
the ruling passions of our nature, the love of 
wealth."* 

Can the objection be shown to be groundless 1 
We meet it with a counter proposition, which, if 
it can be maintained, necessarily refutes it. Uni- 
versal education — meaning thereby something 
more than the mere elements of knowledge — the 
sound, wise, thorough education of the whole com- 
munity, so far from being expensive, is actually a 
gain, even in a pecuniary point of view, to any 
country where it is enjoyed. 

Let us very briefly look at this position in a few 
of its various aspects. An undeniable connexion 
exists between the intelligence of a nation and its 
laws. There is a general fund of talent and in- 
formation from which the accomplishments even 
of statesmen themselves are ultimately derived. 
Nor is the relation between a nation's legislation 



* The reader will observe that apart of this sentence is quoted 
from President Young, of Centre College, Ky. It is taken from 
an address, the object of which is to show that education is a pe- 
cuniary gain to a country. The author freely acknowledges 
his indebtedness to this enlightened friend and able advocate of 
the cause, for some of the topics relied upon under this head, 
and for several interesting and valuable facts and suggestions ; 
though these bear but a small proportion to the whole of what he 
has advanced on this subject. 



48 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Its Effect on Legislation. 

and its wealth less significant or obvious. Wise 
laws, by encouraging industry, quickening inge- 
nuity, and securing the quiet enjoyment of their 
fruits, develope the resources of a country, and 
swell the tide of national prosperity and wealth. 
These are truths so clear that he that runs may 
read. They are derived from the plainest princi- 
ples of reason, and confirmed by the voice of all 
history. 

Universal education, then, is a pecuniary advan- 
tage to a nation, in the first place, by its effect on 
legislation. It would be easy to multiply proofs 
and illustrations of this most interesting truth. 
The argument is broad enough to fill a volume. 
The experience of all ages and nations might be 
made tributary in the gathering of materials for 
its construction. Who can calculate the riches 
often derived to a country from a judicious course 
of policy in relation to any one important interest, 
or even from the operation of a single wise law ? 
In illustration of the former, take those extended 
systems of internal improvement, which have shed 
so much lustre on many of our states, and more 
than doubled their wealth. As an example of the 
latter, look at the law which secures to the author 
of any useful invention the pecuniary benefit re- 
sulting from the sale of the article invented. To 
what an amazing extent has it stimulated human 



HII^TS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 49 

Character of the liaws depends on the Intelligence of the People. 

ingenuity, and urged it on in the career of inven- 
tion and discovery ! And vi^hat arithnietic can 
calculate, v^hat scale can measure, the activity 
and enterprize it has diffused through the commu- 
nity, the degree in which it has augmented the 
productive labour of the country, and the untold 
riches it has in this way poured into the lap of the 
nation ? 

This branch of the subject may be viewed in 
another aspect. We may select any period of 
the world — antiquity, the middle ages, or modern 
times — and compare the nations then existing 
with each other. We may compare, for exam- 
ple, in detail, England with France, France with 
Spain, Spain with Morocco, and Morocco itself 
with the kingdoms of interior Africa. We may 
institute a like process in reference to the same 
country at different periods of its history; as to 
Italy, for instance, before and after what is com- 
monly termed the revival of learning. We may 
make our search into these matters as broad and 
as deep as we please; and what will be the result? 
We shall find, invariably, that those nations where 
the people have been best educated, have also 
been most distinguished for the wisdom of their 
laws, and have enjoyed a greater degree of pros- 
perity, and reached a higher pitch of wealth than 
the others. It would be no labour for giants to 

5 



50 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



Testimony of History on this Point universally in its Favour. 



pile Ossa upon Pelion, and to place them both on 
the top of Olympus, in the shape of proofs. But 
to do this would not harmonize with that cha- 
racter of generality to which the plan I have pro- 
posed to myself renders it necessary for me to 
adhere throughout these brief " Hints." I cannot, 
therefore, now stop to verify the assertion just 
made ; but I make my appeal with confidence to 
history. Let my readers search it for themselves; 
and if they do not find that national prosperity 
and riches follow in the wake of education, as 
naturally as water seeks its level, or vapour as- 
cends toward heaven, then have I read and stu- 
died in vain, and there is no one conclusion at 
which I have arrived, that 1 can rely upon with 
any confidence. But I am not — I cannot be mis- 
taken. I would say, without hesitation, to any 
skeptic on this point — Carry your researches in 
reference to it in whatever direction, and push 
them to whatever extent you will, the result can- 
not but be a conviction, not to be shaken by the 
ingenuity of sophistry or the thunder of declama- 
tion, that the connection is not more inseparable 
between light and the sun, between the shadow 
and its object, than that which exists, and ever 
must exist, between national prosperity and good 
laws, and between wise legislation and general 
intelligence. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 51 

Ignorance in tlit' Ban de la Roche on Oberlin's arrival. 

Not to pass over this point, without one illus- 
tration of it, I would again call your attention 
to the scene of Oberlin's labours; a reference 
which will at the same time illustrate another 
way in which education is a pecuniary gain, viz. 
by increasing the capacity of each individual in 
the community, and enabling him to turn his powers 
to the best account. That extraordinary man was 
the patriarch of his people. He was their lawgiver, 
at least by the force of moral suasion, as well as 
their pastor, their temporal not less than their spiri- 
tual guide. Notwithstanding the praise- worthy la- 
bours of his excellent predecessor, Mr. Stouber, 
he found them, on his arrival at Waldebach, still 
sunk almost to the lowest level in the scale of mo- 
ral and civil existence ; scarcely, indeed, superior 
to the brutes in any thing but their susceptibi- 
lity of improvement. 

Their ignorance was such that their very school- 
masters could scarcely any of them write, and 
many could not read with fluency ; and as to a 
knowledge of any thing else, they were nearly as 
ignorant as so many statues. Some idea of their 
condition may be formed from the following ex- 
tract from Professor Halsey's " Memoirs of Ober- 
lin." " They were alike destitute of the means ol 
mental and social intercourse ; they spoke a rude 
patois, resembling the Lorrain dialect, and the 
medium of no external information; they were 



52 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Its Effects. Oberlin's Labours. His Wisdom and Zeal. 

entirely secluded from the neighbouring districts 
by the want of roads ; the husbandmen were des- 
titute of the most necessary agricultural imple- 
ments, and had no means of procuring them ; the 
provisions derived from the soil were not sufficient 
to maintain even a scanty population ;" and the 
soil itself had so far deteriorated by use, and been 
so often swept away by the rain, from the rocks 
it covered, that fields that had formerly yielded 
from 120 to 150 bushels of potatoes, produced, in 
1767, when Oberlin went to the Ban de la Roche, 
only from 20 to 50 bushels. These various causes, 
which, however, may all be traced to ignorance 
as their fruitful mother, had resulted in a degree 
of rudeness, indigence, and misery, absolutely ap- 
palling, and which rendered the task of improving 
them one of extreme difficulty, and of doubtful 
issue. 

Nothing, however, could deter this excellent 
man from attempting their reform. He entered 
upon his work with the zeal of an apostle, and pro- 
secuted it with the wisdom of a sage, and the pa- 
tience of a devotee. He not only instructed them 
in religion and science, but he taught them agri- 
culture and the mechanic arts, and indoctrinated 
them practically in the deepest principles of politi- 
cal economy; and he had the happiness of be- 
holding, in the course of a few years, the most 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 53 

Remarkable Change. Great Improvements. Effect un Population. 

remarkable change, wrought through his instru- 
mentality, that has perhaps ever occurred, in so 
brief a space, in the condition of an entire people. 
The rude mountaineers had exchanged their 
wretched hovels for neat and comfortable cot- 
tages, and their scanty rags for decent apparel ; 
their barren rocks had been, by the transporta- 
tion and deposit of soil upon them, converted 
into fruitful fields ; manufactures of various kinds 
had been established ; a small but prosperous com- 
merce had been commenced; roads, of which, pro- 
perly speaking, there were none before, had been 
constructed — schools established and perfected — 
an Agricultural Society formed, and numerous im- 
provements in agriculture introduced — and vari- 
ous institutions founded which mark a somewhat 
advanced state of Christian civilization ; and in- 
dustry, contentment, and plenty, smiled through- 
out the valley, and cheered the abode of every 
cottager. 

In confirmation of these statements, I ask your 
attention to the following extract from Professor 
Halsey's work :— 

" Although on Oberlin's first arrival in the Ban 
de la Roche," says the biographer, " the popula- 
tion consisted of eighty or a hundred families only, 
it increased in the course of a few years to five 

5* 



54 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Establishment of Manufactures. Emoluments thence resulting. 

or six hundred, constituting altogether three thou- 
sand souls. 

" To provide employment for so great a num- 
ber of persons, even supposing that five hundred 
could be employed during four or five months in 
the year in the cultivation of land, and that one 
third v^^ere infants and infirm persons incapable of 
w^ork, became a most important object, and gave 
rise to the introduction of various branches of me- 
chanical industry, adapted to local circumstances ; 
such, for instance, as straw-platting, knitting, and 
dyeing with the plants of the country. The former 
was introduced by an invalid captain, whose gra- 
titude for the kind reception he met with, on so- 
liciting the hospitality of the generous pastor of 
Waldebach, induced him to profier his services in 
furthering the views of his benefactor, by instruct- 
ing the young persons in an art with which neces- 
sity had previously made him acquainted. 

" Besides these employments, Oberlin had suc- 
ceeded in introducing the spinning of cotton by 
the hand ; and, as he gave prizes to the best spin- 
ners in addition to their wages, this branch of in- 
dustry for a time succeeded so well that it once 
gained for the Ban de la Roche, in the course of 
a single year, and from one manufacturer, the 
emolument of thirty-two thousand francs — an 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 55 

Mr. Legrand. Silk-Riband Manufactory Established. 

enormous sum, considering the extreme poverty 
and indigence to which the inhabitants had just 
before been subjected. Weaving followed, and, 
notwithstanding numerous obstacles, promised a 
large increase of pecuniary means ; but, unfortu- 
nately, the introduction of machinery at Schir- 
meck and some of the surrounding villages, pro- 
duced an entire revolution about the time the pre- 
ceding letter was written, deprived them of this 
source of maintenance, and seemed likely to re- 
duce them to their former state of necessity and 
want. 

"During this emergency, Mr. Legrand, of Basle, 
formerly one of the Directors of the Helvetic Re- 
public, attracted to the Ban de la Roche by regard 
and affection for its pastor, and the simplicity, in- 
telligence, and integrity of his parishioners, per- 
suaded his two sons, to whom he had relinquished 
business, to remove their manufactory of silk ri- 
bands from the Department of the Upper Rhine 
to Foudai, believing that its introduction in the 
Steinthal, by giving employ to a great many 
hands, would become not only an advantage but 
a real blessing to the peasantry there, who were 
at this period sadly in need of work. 

" In the course of a short time, through the ex- 
ertions of this benevolent and highly respectable 



56 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Its Effect on Industry— on Morals. Intellectual Culture. 

family, industry and happiness again smiled in the 
valley : — for whilst the introduction of the silk 
manufactory caused trade to be carried on with 
renewed vigour, and gave employment to several 
hundred hands, it was attended with another great 
advantage, too seldom experienced in great manu- 
facturing districts ; this was that the riband looms 
were distributed about the houses in the different 
villages, so that, contrary to the usual custom, the 
children could remain whilst at work under the 
eye of their parents, instead of being exposed to 
the contaminating influence of bad example. 

" ' Conducted by Providence,' says Mr. Le- 
grand, in a letter addressed to the Baron de Ge- 
rando, ' into this remote valley, I was the more 
struck with the sterility of its soil, its straw- 
thatched cottages, the apparent poverty of its 
inhabitants, and the simplicity of their fare, from 
the contrast w^hich these external appearances 
formed to the cultivated conversation which I 
enjoyed with almost every individual I met with 
whilst traversing its five villages, and the frank- 
ness and naivete of the children, who extended to 
me their little hands. I had often heard of Pastor 
OberHn, and eagerly sought his acquaintance. He 
gave me the most hospitable reception, and antici- 
pated my desire to know more of the history of 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 57 

Mr. Legrand's Testimony. Triumph of Education. 

the little colony, whose manners had surprised me 
so greatly, by placing in my hands the annals of 
his parish. 

" ' It is now four years since I removed here 
with my family ; and the pleasure of residing in 
the midst of a people, whose manners are softened 
and whose minds are enlightened by the instruc- 
tions which they receive from their earliest in- 
fancy, more than reconciles us to the privations 
which we must necessarily experience in a valley 
separated from the rest of the world by a chain of 
surrounding mountains.' " 

Behold in the simple annals of that remote val- 
ley, the triumph of good education ! Contemplate 
the countless blessings and the sublime hopes it 
confers upon its possessors; blessings which make 
up the sum of human happiness below — hopes 
which stretch beyond the dark and troubled hori- 
zon that bounds our earthly prospects, and are 
anchored fast to the Eternal Throne ! Read, 
moreover, this important lesson — important cer- 
tainly to the political economist — that it is a pecu- 
niary, as well as moral gain, to any community 
where it is enjoyed ! 

Universal education would, in the next place, be 
a pecuniary gain to the country, by diminishing 
expensive amusements and checking sensual in- 
dulgences, I refer here particularly to theatres, 



58 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



Universal Education would diminish hurtful Amusements and Indulgences. 

circuses, gaming, horse-racing, licentiousness, and 
intemperance. It must be admitted that we have 
no means of coming accurately at the facts in re- 
gard to any of these vices ; and with respect to 
that which has most p rominently occupied public 
attention — intemperance — a degree of exaggera- 
tion and romancing has been indulged in, which 
has done real injury to the cause it was designed 
to promote. Nevertheless, it will not be questioned 
by any reflecting man, that, if we could come at the 
facts, it would appear that each of these gratifica- 
tions costs the nation every year its hundreds of 
thousands of dollars, and some of them many mil- 
lions; and that, if the whole annual expense to the 
United States of amusements either frivolous or 
hurtful, and of indulgences that demoralise and 
degrade our nature, could be ascertained and 
held up to public view, the amount would be such 
as to astound every imagination, and appal every 
heart. 

Ahhough we cannot fortify our argument by a 
long array of well digested and well authenticated 
arithmetical tables, we may mention a single fact, 
which will furnish ground for a reasonable con- 
jecture as to the expense of the so called " schools 
of morality," in the city of New York. An intel- 
ligent gentleman made the circuit of the theatrical 
establishments in that city, on an evening of no ex- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 59 



Enormous Expense of Theatres in the City of New York. 



traordinary attractions, and during the severity of 
the pressure on the money market. He was at 
some pains to calculate the numbers in attendance, 
and he came to the conclusion that not less than 
four thousand five hundred dollars had been re- 
ceived that night as admission money. At a mo- 
derate calculation, an additional five hundred dol- 
lars — probably much more— must have been 
expended in the purchase of liquors and refresh- 
ments. If we take this as an average night — and, 
considering the circumstances, it would seem not 
unfair to do so— and fix the number of nights on 
which the theatres are open at two hundred a 
year, the annual expense, to the city of New York 
alone, of these seminaries of vice — these recepta- 
cles and propagators of corruption — these gilded 
sepulchres filled with the bones of perished virtue 
and honour, will be one million of dollars; an 
amount greater by nearly a third than the whole 
sum paid to common school teachers, in the entire 
State of New York, in the year 1834. And this is 
but one item in the long and fearful account. Add 
to it gaming, horse-racing, impurity, intemperance, 
and a host of kindred gratifications, and the aggre- 
gate expense of them in that city alone would, it 
can scarcely be doubted, exceed in amount all that 
is expended on common schools in the whole 
United States. 



60 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Education a saving in this respect. Some think otherwise. 

Now I neither say nor think that all the money 
that is at present thrown away on such objects as 
these, would be converted to other and better uses 
by the universal diffusion of education ; neither, on 
the other hand, can it be reasonably doubted that 
a great part of it, perhaps nnore than one half, 
would be saved to the community by the establish- 
ment and maintenance of good schools — such 
schools as religion, humanity, and sound policy 
demand. 

I am aware that there are those who entertain 
the opinion that education, however thorough or 
widely diffused, would not tend to diminish amuse- 
ments, and especially theatres. They appeal in 
support of this opinion to the history of Rome and 
the Grecian republics, the most intellectual and 
highly cultivated nations of ancient times; and 
yet, say they, the theatre not only existed and 
flourished among them, but the fondness of the 
people for theatrical representations amounted to 
an actual passion. I admit the main facts on 
which the reasoning of these men is based — viz. 
the civilization and theatrical taste of the ancient 
Greeks and Romans ;* but I submit, with all de- 



* In admitting the general civilization, or at least the general 
education of the Romans, I yield more than could be demanded, 
and more than is warranted by the facts. The Roman people, 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 61 

The Spirit of Christianity and of Theatres opposite to each other. 

ference, that their reasoning itself is wholly erro- 
neous. Their conclusion is drawn from a false 
analogy. I shall have occasion, in the progress 
of these " Hints," to specify the nature of the edu- 
cation I would recommend ; but it may be proper 
here to observe, in passing, that I am firmly of 
the opinion that no education, not founded on and 
impregnated with the genuine principles of the 
Christian religion, would be worth the labour and 
expense involved in its attainment. And is it pos- 
sible that any man, who knows whereof he affirms, 
can maintain that the spirit of Christianity and the 
spirit of theatres — especially as they are at pre- 
sent conducted — are in harmony with each other! 
or that the prevalence of the one would not be the 
decrease of the other? " Try the spirits whether 
they be of God ;" — try them by any test that ever 
occurred to man or angel. The ingenuity of the 
arch fiend himself would fail to discover, I will 
not say an identity, but even a sympathy between 
them. They are as wide asunder, as inconsistent 



properly speaking, were never an educated people. On the con- 
trary, various decrees of the senate exist, the design of which 
was to prevent the education of the common people. But I am 
content to yield this point, as I have done in the text, for the sake 
of argument, — being persuaded that the position I have taken is 
a sound one, and that it needs no support from this source. 

6 



62 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Proved by a priori reasoning. By the History of the ancient Jews. 

with each other, as antagonistical in their nature, 
as light and darkness — as virtue and vice — as 
Christ and BeHal. This, I suppose, will hardly 
be controverted. The only question which re- 
mains, then, is, whether a wise Christian educa- 
tion has a natural tendency to diffuse Christian 
principles, to strengthen the Christian spirit, and 
to promote the practice of the Christian virtues. 
To argue this question in a Christian community 
would be little less than to trifle with the feelings, 
or insult the understanding, of its members. To 
maintain the negative of it would be to contend 
for a proposition, which, if true, would reverse the 
order of things, rupture the connexion between 
cause and effect, and unsettle the foundations of 
all our knowledge. 

But if, leaving this a 'priori course of reasoning, 
we would gather up the facts of experience, and 
draw our inferences from them, no example occurs 
to me, so fully in point, as that of the ancient Jews. 
They were the chosen people of Jehovah, the ob- 
jects of his peculiar care, the witnesses of stupen- 
dous miracles wrought for their special deliver- 
ance and preservation, and educated upon prin- 
ciples of divine inculcation. And how stood the 
case with them 1 Among all the means appointed 
by Divine Wisdom for the attainment of a stern 
and rigorous virtue, the modern " schools of mo- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 63 

The Theatre unknown among the Jews. 

rality" found no place. The theatre was actually 
unknown among the ancient Israelites. They had 
their amusements, it is true; and often of a highly 
exhilarating and cheerful kind. But their very 
pastimes were tinctured with the spirit of religion, 
and some of them even were of the nature of 
religious observances. And we have the autho- 
rity of divine revelation for affirming that, when 
Christian education shall have become universal, 
such will be the grasp and energy of the devo- 
tional spirit, that it will invest every object and 
pursuit with an atmosphere of sanctity ; — " every 
pot in Jerusalem shall be holy, and upon the bells 
of the horses shall be inscribed, Holiness to the 
Lord." 

I must apologize to you for the last two para- 
graphs. They were not originally in the work; 
and were introduced only after the objection they 
attempt to meet had been actually urged by an in- 
telligent and excellent friend, to whom the first 
copy had been submitted. We will now return 
to the thread of the argument, as left at the point 
just indicated. 

It is easy to perceive how education would 
tend to diminish the amusements and indul- 
gences specified, and others of a like charac- 
ter with them. The explanation cannot be bet» 



64 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

How Education would diminish improper Amusements and Indulgences. 

ter given than in the words of a late eminent 
divine.* 

" By multiplying the mental resources, it has a 
tendency to exalt the character, and in some mea- 
sure to correct and subdue the taste for gross sen- 
suality. It enables the possessor to beguile his 
leisure moments, (and every man has such,) in an 
innocent at least, if not in a useful manner. The 
poor man who can read, and who possesses a taste 
for reading, can find entertainment ai home, with- 
out being tempted to repair elsewhere for that 
purpose. His mind can find employment w^hile 
his body is at rest ; he does not lie prostrate and 
afloat on the current of incidents, liable to be car- 
ried whithersoever the impulse of appetite may di- 
rect. There is in the mind of such a man an in- 
tellectual spring, urging him to the pursuit of 
mental good ; and if the minds of his family also 
are a Httle cultivated, conversation becomes the 
more interesting, and the sphere of domestic enjoy- 
ment is enlarged. The calm satisfaction which 
books afford, puts him into a disposition to relish 
more exquisitely the tranquil delight inseparable 
from the indulgence of the social affections. He 
who is inured to reflection will carry his views be- 



* Robert Hall. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 65 

Amusements of a different kind recommended. 

yond the present hour ; he will extend his prospect 
a little into futurity, and be disposed to make some 
provision for his approaching wants ; whence will 
result an increased motive to industry, together 
with a care to husband his earnings, and to avoid 
unnecessary expense. The poor man who has 
gained a taste for good books, will in all likelihood 
become thoughtful ; and when you have given to 
the poor a habit of thinking, you have conferred 
on them a much greater favour than by the gift of 
a large sum of money, since you have put them in 
possession of the principle of all legitimate pros- 
perity."* 



* Some, there may be, who, drawing their inferences as pre- 
judice or caprice dictates, rather than upon the principles of 
right reason, will charge me here with waging an indiscriminate 
warfare upon all amusements. Such would do me arrant injus- 
tice. On the contrary, I think that, as a nation, we are deficient 
in amusements. The gay, tne frivolous, the idle, the vicious, and 
the worldly, have, it is true, their pastimes of a certain kind, and 
indulge in them to excess ; but there is a great dearth among us 
of those rational amusements, which are conducive alike to mo- 
ral, to intellectual, and to physical health ; and which both the 
philosopher and the Christian can approve and commend. Mu- 
sic, that inexhaustible resource for the leisure hours of all classes 
in Germany and other European countries, if cultivated here, 
would become, in multitudes of cases, a refuge from ennui, and a 
safeguard against costly and ruinous gratifications. Parties con- 
sisting of two or three families might occasionally be found to 

6 * 



m HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Amusements indispensable. Ought to be provided for by the Good. 

An adequate system of popular education would, 
in the third place, diminish the spirit — and, con- 



spend a day in the open fields, where they might enjoy together 
the exquisite beauties of nature, and partake of the invigorating 
repast beneath the shade of ancient trees, reclining upon the 
green velvet of nature's own forming, fanned by the sweet and pure 
breath of heaven, and lulled and soothed by the mingled music 
of birds and streamlets. Such parties would partake somewhat 
of the nature of the feast of tabernacles among the ancient Israel- 
ites, and of the De Vega excursions of the Spaniards of our own 
times. They would strengthen the social affections, promote the 
growth of the social virtues, and impart real instruction, especi- 
ally to the younger members of the party, while they afforded to 
all pleasures of the purest, most healthful, and most elevating 
kind. The young might be usefully amused by visiting manu- 
factories, inspecting various kinds of machinery, and beholding 
the endlessly diversified results of human ingenuity. The social 
circle, the air-balloon, the camera obscura upon a large scale, the 
more brilliant of the experiments in chemistry and natural phi- 
losophy, the wonders of the world beneath and the worlds above 
us, as revealed by the microscope and the telescope, — all these 
might be made to blend amusement and instruction, and would 
afford recreations worthy of immortal and accountable beings. 
Nor am I disposed to deny that the drama itself, if culti- 
vated, not for purposes of gain, but for the entertainment of 
select circles of friends and acquaintances, and enacted by ama- 
teurs instead of professed actors, might be made a source of pure 
and instructive amusement. 

Amusement of some kind seems indispensable to our nature, 
and men will have it at any cost, whether of morals or money. 
And if the friends of order and virtue, the rightful guardians of 
the public morals, will not provide for this instinctive and irre« 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 67 

Education diminishes Litigation. Promotes Peace and Forbearance. 

sequently, the expense — of litigation. One princi- 
pal object of education is to teach men their duty, 
and to supply motives to the performance of it. 
If this were properly done with respect to dll the 
youth of our land, if just sentiments with regard 
to revenge and the forgiveness of injuries were 
early, and earnestly, and perseveringly inculcated, 
if that cardinal principle of human intercourse — 
Do unto others as ye would that they should do 
unto you — were unfolded to their understanding 
and impressed upon their heart, by men respected 
for their learning, and beloved for their virtues, 
would it not tend to promote those dispositions, so 
beautifully described by Paul as the " ornaments 
of a meek and quiet spirit '?" Can it be doubted 
that the effect of such training would be to 
strengthen the bonds of universal brotherhood. 



pressible craving of the soul, multitudes of others stand ready to 
do it, and to make merchandize of the health, the happiness, and 
the souls of their fellow-men. I am forcibly reminded here of an 
anecdote I saw a few years ago of an interview between an Ame- 
rican scholar and a professor in the university of Palermo, in 
Sicily. The Sicilian inquired of the American what were 
the pastimes of our literary men ? The latter replied, " They 
have none." " No wonder then," said the other, " that they lan- 
guish for a few years in feeble health, and then die prematurely. 
I could not live without spending two or three hours every day at 
my piano," 



68 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



Education saves by diminishing Pauperism and Criminal Prosecutions. 



and thus to diminish the number of lawsuits by 
preventing the occasions of them'? It would also 
tend to the same result in a different way. It 
would make men better acquainted with the prin- 
ciples of law and justice, increase their confidence 
in each other's judgment, and cause them more 
frequently, when disputes did arise, to resort to 
the less expensive, and often more equitable mode, 
of settling them by arbitration. 

Again : The thorough education of all the peo- 
ple would be an annual saving to the nation of 
many millions of dollars by its tendency to dimi- 
nish pauperism, and to lessen the number of crimi- 
nal prosecutions. By whom are our prisons and 
poor-houses now filled to overflowing? A re- 
ference to the statistics of crime and poverty will 
show that it is almost exclusively by those whose 
intellects have never been enlightened by know^- 
ledge, and whose hearts lack that moral culture, 
which good education always bestows. Pour the 
light of science into the minds of the whole com- 
munity, and imbue them early with the principles 
of religion, and more than one-half of those edi- 
fices which are now devoted to the reception of 
convicts and paupers, might be either pulled down, 
or devoted to some purpose, I will not say better, 
for nothing better can be done while such classes 
exist among us, but at least to some use, which 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 69 

It would increase the Capacity of each Individual in the Community. 

would not be a perpetual monument of our dege- 
neracy, and upon whose causes, as well as conse- 
quences, we could reflect without a sigh or a 
blush. 

Another way in w^hich universal education 
would promote the wealth of the country, is by in- 
creasing the capacity of each individual in the 
community, by enabling all to turn their powers to 
the best account, and by adding something to the 
average duration of human life. The first part 
of this proposition is very much of the character 
of an axiom. It is a law of our nature, as well 
established, and as generally admitted, as any 
other, that all our capacities, whether of mind or 
body, are improved by exercise and culture. This 
law of exercise is of universal application, — ex- 
tending, as it has been well remarked, from the 
energy of a muscle, to the highest intellectual and 
moral faculties. And that he whose powers have 
been developed by education, whose faculties have 
been trained by exercise, and whose general capa- 
city both for planning and executing is thereby 
and therefore enlarged, can accomplish more in a 
given time than another who is inferior to him in 
these respects, is one of those principles which 
cannot be proved by reasoning, because there are 
no other principles of more obvious and admitted 
correctness upon which it can repose. It is a 



70 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

It would enable all to turn their Powers to the best Account. 

truth which, when first enunciated, strikes the 
mind as self-evident ; and which, therefore, admits 
only that kind of proof, which is termed illustra- 
tion. It would be an easy task to fill many pages 
in illustrating this position ; but this would be a 
waste of time, strength, and paper. Illustration, 
all-sufficient, must be in the memory of every 
man of observation. Who does not know, who 
has not seen, that, in every pursuit of life, those 
who are most skilful, are also, almost without ex- 
ception, most successful in amassing wealth ? But 
he who yields this point, yields the whole argu- 
ment. Skill, in any business or profession, is no- 
thing other than that complex result consequent 
upon the appropriate training of our faculties, the 
harmonious development of our various animal, 
mental, and moral powers. 

That an education of all the people, sufficiently 
comprehensive in its range of studies, and of a 
proper character in other respects, would have 
considerable effect in prolonging human life, will 
not, gentlemen, be questioned by you, nor, I appre- 
hend, by any one else, after duly weighing exist- 
ing facts, and the natural operation of cause and 
effect. It is an undeniable fact, that the average 
duration of life is far greater in civilized than in 
savage countries. It is impossible to ascertain 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 71 

It would prolong Human Life. How this Result would follow. 

the exact ratio of duration, owing to the difficulty 
of obtaining statistics on any subject among bar- 
barous tribes ; but it is thought by some that civil- 
ized men live nearly twice as long as savages. 
What is the fair inference from this remarkable 
fact? Certainly, that there is some quality in 
knowledge, the tendency of which is to prolong 
human existence. What is this quality 1 Is it so 
subtile as to elude our search, and baffle our efforts 
to grasp it ? I think not. Unless I am deceived, 
it will be found in this — viz. — that knowledge, and 
especially Christian knowledge, forms habits, cre- 
ates a moral atmosphere, establishes a state of so- 
ciety, favourable to the result actually occurring. 
Temperance in all things, cheerful industry, inno- 
cent recreation, and a quiet conscience, are among 
the most important conditions of long life. And 
has it not been alreadv shown, to the satisfaction 
of all candid persons, that good education tends, 
directly and powerfully, to produce all these ef- 
fects 1 But besides this, such education as I could 
desire to see made universal, would diffuse a gene- 
ral knowledge of the more direct laws of health ; 
and this knowledge, though of comparatively 
little avail while existing only in isolated cases, 
when communicated to the whole mass of society, 
and instilled, practically as well as theoretically, 



72 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Universal Education would quicken ingenuity, and promote Inventions. 

from early childhood, could not be altogether in- 
operative.* 

Again : A system of universal and sound edu- 
cation would tend to quicken ingenuity, and thus 
to promote those inventions and discoveries, by 
the application of which to the arts of life the 
wealth of individuals and of nations is incalcula- 
bly augmented. Men without education, or with 
comparatively little, may, by some fortunate acci- 
dent — as the principle of making glass is said to 
have been discovered by some Syrian fishermen — 
or, bv the mere force of orio^inal talent — as Pas- 
chal, while yet a youth, and before he had even 
heard of Euclid, actually rediscovered the science 
of geometry — such persons, I say, may, by possi- 
bility, stumble upon some undiscovered principle, 
or strike out some new idea, which may be ap- 
plied to purposes of great and general utility. But 
it is impossible that such cases should be of fre- 
quent occurrence. I hardly remember more than 
the two already cited as examples; and even as to 
these, the former is somewhat apocryphal, and 



* The author is happy to have these views confirmed by the 
opinion of so competent a physiologist as Dr. J. K. Mitchell, of 
Philadelphia ; — w^ho combines, in an eminent degree, general 
science and professional merit, with those more elegant accom- 
plishments which mark the man of letters and the gentleman. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 73 

Knowledge as well as Genius necessary to fit men for inventing. 

it may well be questioned whether the latter is 
exactly a case in point.* Some previous know- 
ledge and mental discipline, as well as genius, 
some acquaintance with the principles of science, 
are necessary to fit men for originating those cu- 
rious combinations of thought, and pursuing those 
felicitous trains of experiment, which penetrate 
into the secrets of nature and the regions of inven- 
tion, and bring back those bloodless trophies, 
which shed a real glory on our race, which exalt 
our conceptions of the power and dignity of the 
human mind, and which multiply, beyond expres- 
sion, our comforts and our gains. 

History, so far as its voice is heard at all on 
this subject, will fully bear me out in this position. 
Almost all the valuable discoveries and inventions 
on record have been made by educated men — 
self-educated, it may be, and struggling amid ne- 
glect or contumely, against obstacles insuperable 
by less resolute minds, till they have brought their 
labours to a happy termination ; — and those na- 
tions where the general intellect has been most 
cultivated, and the light of science most widely dif- 



* Paschal, though he knew nothing of geometry, was far 
from being uneducated. His father was one of the most emi- 
nent mathematicians in France, whose house was the constant 
resort of learned men. 

7 



74 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

History confirms this. Comparison between England and France. 

fused, have also been most distinguished for the 
number of their labour-saving machines, and for 
their improvements in the various branches of 
industry, by which v^ealth is accumulated. It is 
chiefly through the use of machinery that modern 
nations have been enabled so immeasurably to out- 
strip those of ancient times in riches ; and it is 
by the same means that one nation now surpasses 
another in this respect. 

In illustration of this point, President Young 
has made a comparison, founded upon the statis- 
tics of Baron Dupin, between the commercial and 
manufacturing condition of England and France. 
From this calculation it appears that the muscular 
force employed in commerce and manufactures in 
those two countries is about equal, being in each 
equivalent, in round numbers, to the power of six 
millions of men. Thus, if the productive enter- 
prise of the two countries depended solely upon the 
animate power employed, France ought to be as 
great a commercial and manufacturing country as 
England. But the Enghsh, by means of machi- 
nery, have increased their force to a power equal 
to that of twenty-five millions of men, while the 
French have only raised theirs to that of eleven 
millions. England, then, owing to her superiority 
in discovering and inventing, has more than quad- 
rupled her power of men and horses ; France, on 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 75 

England's Gain over Fiance by her Inventions and Discoveries. 

the other hand, has not quite doubled hers. " Is 
it," the learned President then pertinently inquires, 
" is it now any wonder that these islanders, with 
a narrower territory, smaller population, and less 
genial climate, should immensely outstrip their 
less intelligent and ingenious neighbour t And can 
we conceive a stronger proof of the actual pecu- 
niary gain, that accrues to a nation from culti- 
vating the intellect of her sons, than is furnished 
bv such a fact?" 

Let us look a little into this fact, to ascertain, if 
possible, how much England gains by her supe- 
riority in this matter over France. The actual 
commercial and manufacturing power of the latter 
country is only two-fifths of that of the former. 
The present annual value of the cotton manufac- 
ture in Great Britain, according to the Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica, is estimated to be about thirty- 
five miUions of pounds sterling. Three-fifths of 
that sum, or more than twenty millions of pounds, 
is England's clear gain over her less skilful rival — 
an amount more than three times as great as the 
whole present annual revenue of the United States. 
And for this vast and ever increasing tide of pros- 
perity, England is clearly indebted to popular 
education, which is the parent of intelligence, and 
the ultimate cause of all those improvements in the 
cotton manufacture, by w^hich these amazing re- 
sults have been secured^ 



76 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



British Cotton Trade. Middleton's Plan for supplying London with Water. 



There is a striking fact connected with the 
British East India cotton trade, which illustrates 
the wonderful superiority, in respect to their com- 
mand over the elements of wealth, of those nations 
w^here the common mind is developed and stimu- 
lated by education. The manufacture of cotton 
goods was commenced in the East Indies, and for 
a long time, cotton fabrics were imported from 
that country into England. Now, however, in 
consequence of the introduction of machinery into 
England, and the perfection to which it has been 
brought, British manufacturers purchase the raw 
material in India, transport it seven thousand miles 
by water, pay a heavy duty to the state upon it, 
convert it into cloth, and then send it back again, 
and actually undersell the natives'^ in their own 
market. 

The ingenuity of a single intellect, which might 
have slept for ever in ignorance and inactivity but 
for the influence of education, sometimes saves a 
nation more than it would cost to educate tho- 
roughly all her sons. About a century ago, Hugh 
Middleton devised a plan for supplying London 
with pure water. It is estimated that a supply of 



* The same rude hand-looms are still employed by them in 
the manufacture of cotton, which were used by their ancestors 
many centuries ago. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 77 

Iramense Saving by it. Application of Steam to Boats and Cars. 

wholesome water for that metropolis, if furnished 
by hauling, the method originally in use, would 
cost nine millions of pounds sterling. By Middle- 
ton's plan it costs considerably less than half a 
million. Thus London has, by one invention, 
been saved an annual expense, in the article of 
water alone, of more than eight and a half millions 
of pounds sterling, or about forty millions of dol- 
lars. This sum is more than enough to maintain 
good schools in the whole of England, Scotland, 
and Ireland. 

Education, such as it exists at present among 
us, has already, by the inventions and discoveries 
of which it has been the source, increased the 
riches of this nation to an extent incalculably be- 
yond all that the best system would have cost us. 
The application of steam to the propulsion of boats 
and railroad-cars, is alone more than sufficient to 
justify this remark. " It has already done more 
for every state in this union than all the power of 
industry, working by the old methods, could have 
effected for it in a hundred years. It has filled 
our houses with the productions of every country 
and climate, and has raised the price of every 
acre of our land, and almost every article of our 
produce." These are its direct consequences : 
but it has produced collateral effects, scarcely less 

auspicious to the prosperity and riches of the 

7* 



78 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

The Cotton Cultivator. Card-making Machine. Cotton Gin. 

country, in the powerful impulse it has given to 
commerce, manufactures, agriculture, and all 
other branches of industry, by which men seek to 
create or to augment their fortunes. 

But the advantages of the application of steam 
to these purposes, great as they are, scarcely bear 
a proportion to the aggregate of benefits derived 
from innumerable other inventions and discoveries. 
An instrument, called the cotton cultivator, has re- 
cently been invented, for thinning and weeding 
cotton, which, it is estimated, will perform the 
work of twenty men. I cannot, for want of the 
necessary data, which are not accessible to me 
where I write, enter into statements to show how 
much labour and expense are annually saved to 
the United States by Whittimore's card-making 
machine, and Whitney's cotton gin; but the amount 
must be immense. Who can tell how much is 
saved to the husbandman, and the extent to which 
his gains are increased, by the use of the pa- 
tent rake, and of the reaping and threshing ma- 
chines, and by the invention and improvement 
of various other instruments for facilitating his 
labours ? 

We cannot, however, descend to particulars. 
The ingenuity of our countrymen has been direct- 
ed, and often with the most gratifying results, to 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 7^ 



Various other Inventions. Their Eifect on National Prosperity. 



the invention of power-multiplying* machines, in 
every branch of human industry. A mere cata- 
logue of the patents granted by the United States 
would fill several volumes. And to what are we 
indebted for this vast mass of labour-saving ma- 
chinery, this multitude that can scarcely be num- 
bered, of instruments for the accumulation of 
w^ealth ? I reply unhesitatingly, — To the develop- 
ment of the popular mind by education. 

But the intellect of this people is not cultivated 
to one fourth — scarcely, perhaps, to one eighth — 
the extent that it would be by the adoption of a 
wise system of universal education. And who can 
calculate the results, — what imagination can set 
limits to the pecuniary advantages that would ac- 
crue to the country, if useful inventions and disco- 
veries were multiplied fourfold ? What multitudes, 
it has been well asked, would then benefit society 
by their ingenuity, who now curse it with their 
vices'? How many Franklins, and Fultons, and 
Rittenhouses would rise up to bless the world, if 



* I employ this word according to popular usage. I am well 
aware that it is not scientifically correct. There is really no such 
thing in art as an increased result, without a corresponding in- 
crease in the producing power. All that the most complex and 
ingenious machinery can do, is to concentrate power, to change 
its direction, or in some way to modify its action. 



80 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Governor Everett's beautiful Eulogium on the Time-Piece. 

the beams of knowledge were poured upon every 
mind, to kindle the flame of slumbering genius ! 
But if the education of all the children of a state 
for centuries raised up only one such discoverer 
as Fulton, or Watt, or Arkwright, without yield- 
ing another advantage, the country would be im- 
mensely a gainer by the outlay.* 



* I introduce in this place, partly because it serves as a measure 
to enforce my own argument, but more on account of its great 
beauty of style and thought, the following extract from Governor 
Everett's Address before the Massachusetts Charitable Associa- 
tion, descriptive of the value of that ingenious little instrument, 
which marks the progress of time. " Consider," says he, " the 
influence on the affairs of men, in all their relations, of the in- 
vention of the little machine which I hold in my hand, and the 
other modern instrument for the measurement of time, various 
specimens of which are on exhibition in the halls. To say no- 
thing of the importance of an accurate measurement of time in 
astronomical observations, nothing of the application of time- 
keepers to the purposes of navigation— how vast must be the ag- 
gregate effect on the affairs of life, throughout the civilized 
world ; and, in the progress of ages, of a convenient and porta- 
ble apparatus for measuring the lapse of time ! Who can calcu- 
late in how many of those critical junctures when the affairs of 
weightiest import hang upon the issue of an hour, prudence and 
forecast have triumphed over blind casualty, by being enabled to 
measure with precision the flight of time, in its smallest subdi- 
visions ! 

" Is it not something more than mere mechanism, which 
watches with us by the sick bed of some dear friend, through the 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 81 

Education increases our Command over the Products of Nature. 

Finally, on this branch of the argument, the dif- 
fusion of sound and suitable education among all 
the members of a community, would enable them 
to push their researches to an indefinite extent into 
the powers and productions of physical nature, to 
subject these mighty agents to their will, and to 
render them subservient to the purposes of gain. 
Here are two distinct and prolific sources or 
instruments of wealth — the powers of nature and 



livelong solitude of night, enabling us to count, in the slackening 
pulse, Nature's trembling steps towards recovery, and to admi- 
nister the prescribed remedy at the precise, perhaps the critical 
moment of its application ! By means of a watch, punctuality in 
all his duties, which in its perfection is one of the incommunica- 
ble attributes of Deity, is brought, in no mean measure, within 
the reach of man. He is enabled, if he will be guided by this, 
to imitate that sublime precision which led the earth, after a 
circuit of five hundred millions of miles, back to the solstice at the 
appointed moment without the loss of one second, no, not the mil- 
lionth part of a second, for the ages on ages during which it has 
travelled that road. What a miracle of art, that a man can teach 
a few brass wheels, and a little piece of elastic steel, to outcalcu- 
late himself; to give him a rational answer to one of the most 
important questions which a being travelling towards eternity can 
ask ! What a miracle that a man can put within this little machine 
a spirit that measures the flight of time with greater accuracy 
than the unassisted intellect of the profoundest philosopher; 
which watches and moves when sleep palsies alike the hand of 
the maker and the mind of the contriver, nay, when the last 
sleep has come over them both," 



82 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



Man encompassed with a vast Assemblage of Powers. 

the productions of nature — over each of which the 
best educated, whether individuals or nations, have 
the greatest comnnand, and can niost readily and 
effectually turn them to account in the pursuit of 
riches. The connexion here specified, viz. be- 
tween education and the ability to make nature 
herself the minister of wealth, if not received 
exactly as an axiom, will, I suppose, be gene- 
rally acknowledged as a truth already suffi- 
ciently established by experience. All that is ne- 
cessary, then, to our present purpose is to give a 
few exemplifications of the value of this power, in 
other words, the extent to which it may be applied 
for promoting the end supposed ; — to place, as it 
were, an occasional buoy, indicating the channel 
through which the thoughts and investigations of 
those must flow who would come to a full under- 
standing of the pecuniary benefits to be derived 
from this source. 

If we look around us to ascertain our true posi- 
tion and circumstances, we shall find ourselves 
encompassed with a vast assemblage of powers,* 
which all bear some relation to the human intel- 
ligence, and many of which are susceptible of 



* And there are doubtless many others still hid in the womb 
of nature, which science will yet bring to light, and art apply to 
beneficial ends. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 83 

All those Powers related to the Human Intelligence. The Loadstone. 

being, in some way and to some extent, controlled 
and converted to our use, by art and skill. There 
is a mysterious power in the earth, which draws 
the loadstone always towards the same point. The 
discovery of this power, and the application of it 
to the construction of the magnetic needle and the 
mariner's compass, have made the ocean the 
highway of nations — the ocean, that liquid plain 
without line or landmark, which stretches over half 
the globe, and which suffers the mightiest ships to 
cut their way through its waters without leaving 
the least traces of their progress. Had not the 
intelligence of man — an intelligence, be it always 
remembered, drawn forth by education — made 
this secret influence subservient to his purposes, 
what would now be the state of commerce ; what 
the condition of this mighty continent; what our 
knowledge of remote countries ; what the civiliza- 
tion of the w^orld ?* It would require a volume, 
nay, almost a library, to develope in detail all the 
effects, having either a direct or a remote relation 
to the acquisition of wealth, of this wonderful 



* How, indeed, without it, could the gospel be carried to the 
" uttermost parts of the earth ?" and the last command of a suf- 
fering Saviour be fulfilled ? But I did not introduce this con- 
sideration into the text, because it is not pertinent to the argu- 
ment in hand. 



84 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Gravitation. Expansive Povi^er of Heat — Application to Business of Life. 

principle, and the instruments which have been 
invented to render it available for human use. 

There is another mysterious power in the earth, 
which causes all bodies on or near its surface to 
tend towards the centre. It is this principle which 
makes water seek its level, and descend in 
streams from more elevated regions towards the 
ocean. But educated intelligence enables man to 
stay the torrent in its course, to turn it from its 
channel, to appropriate its moving force, and thus 
to make it grind his corn, manufacture his cloth, 
print his books, forge his iron, spin his thread, and 
perform many other useful and profitable ser- 
vices. 

There is a hidden influence or power, in heat, 
which causes almost all known substances to ex- 
pand, and liquids in the process of expansion to 
assume the gaseous form. To what endless uses, 
in the business of life, has not civilized and edu- 
cated man applied this simple principle ? He has 
employed it to measure the state of the atmosphere, 
to blast the rocks with which he rears his cities, 
to move the " floating palace" through the water, 
to send the richly freighted car careering through 
the air, to give intensity to his destructive ener- 
gies in the wars he wages with his enemies, and 
to set machinery of all kinds and for all purposes 
in motion. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 85 

Knowledge is truly Power. Man's Interest lies in Knowing. 

" The wind bloweth where it listeth," and no 
human power can change its direction. But can 
man do nothing with it 1 Yes; he can and does. 
He spreads his canvass to the gale, catches a por- 
tion of the moving element, and traverses by its 
aid the broadest oceans for purposes of traffic and 
of gain. 

*' In such a state of things," as Mr. Combe well 
remarks, " knowledge is truly power; and it is ob- 
viously the interest of human beings to become 
acquainted with the constitution and relations of 
every object around them, that they may dis- 
cover its capabilities of ministering to their advan- 
tage. Farther,— where these physical energies 
are too great to be controlled, man has received 
intelligence, by which he may observe their 
course, and accommodate his conduct to their 
influence. This capacity of adaptation is a 
valuable substitute for the power of regulating 
them by his will. Man cannot arrest the sun in 
its course, so as to avert the wintry storm and 
cause perpetual spring to bloom around him ; but, 
by the proper exercise of his intelligence and cor- 
poreal energies, he is able to foresee the approach 
of bleak skies and rude winds, and to place him- 
self in safety from their injurious effects. These 
powers of controlling nature, and of accommo- 
dating his conduct to its course, are the direct re- 



86 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Knowledge of the Prndiictinns of Nature advantageous. 

suits of his rational faculties ; and in proportion 
to their cultivation is his sway extended. If the 
rain fall, and the wind blow, and the ocean bil- 
lows lash against the nnere animal, it must endure 
them all ; because it cannot control their action, 
nor protect itself by art from their powder. Man, 
while ignorant, continues in a condition almost 
equally helpless. But let him put forth his proper 
human capacities, [and cultivate the faculties with 
which his Creator has endowed him,] and he then 
finds himself invested with the power to rear, to 
build, to fabricate, and to store up provisions; and, 
by availing himself of these resources, and accom- 
modating his conduct to the course of nature's 
laws," he is able not only to obtain a competency, 
but to amass wealth, and may " smile in safety be- 
side the cheerful hearth, when the elements main- 
tain their fiercest war abroad." 

A well educated community does not possess a 
less striking advantage over an ignorant one in 
their knowledge of the 'productions of nature, their 
ability to increase this knowledge indefinitely, and 
their power of making it tell on the public pros- 
perity. This position is susceptible of interesting 
and forcible illustration from the geological surveys 
recently made, or now in progress, in several of 
the states of this union. Who, till then, had formed 
any conception of the varied and inexhaustible 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 87 

Geological Surveys. Mineral Wealth. Monmouth County. 

mineral resources of this country ? And who now 
can tell the yet undiscovered riches embowelled in 
our mountains, or sleeping undisturbed, because 
unknown, beneath the surface of our valleys? It 
is but a few years since that Monmouth county, 
in New^- Jersey, was one of the poorest counties in 
the state. The real estate there is now worth 
more than in any other county in our common- 
wealth. Whence this change 1 It is owing solely 
to the discovery and use of marl by the farmers. 
Lands in that county worth, five years ago, no 
more than from five to ten dollars an acre, are 
now valued at a hundred dollars; and the farmers 
who own them are all making fortunes. 

But more space has already been devoted to 
this division of these " Hints" than was originally 
intended ; and I forbear pursuing the train of 
thought suggested by this topic. You will, how- 
ever, I trust, excuse one illustration of the point 
under consideration. It is taken from the history 
of the Ban de la Roche, which has already been 
repeatedly referred to as full of excellent and 
various instruction. Before Oberlin went to that 
district, its inhabitants had subsisted almost en- 
tirely on a sort of wild potatoes, which their 
exhausted soil produced in very scanty quantities. 
Oberlin, having a thorough knowledge of botany, 
instructed his people in the properties of their 



88 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Illustrated by Oberlin"s People. 

indigenous plants. Among them were the stripe- 
flowered cabbage; common chickweed; water 
mouse-eared chickweed; common goose-foot; 
common dandelion; mountain willow-herb; but- 
ter-cup; yellow dead nettle; white dead nettle; 
common hop; red phnpernel; great plaintain; 
upright crow-foot ; twisted snake-weed ; common 
sorrel ; lamb's lettuce ; bladder campion ; water 
cress ; and corn cockle. These common plants, 
which they had trodden under foot from genera- 
tion to generation, without dreaming that they 
were of any value, they now learned to use in a 
variety of ways to increase their comforts and 
add to their meaps of living. 

These are mere specimens of the various ways 
in which an acquaintance with the powers and 
productions of nature may contribute to the acqui- 
sition of wealth. They are not given as a full, or 
scarcely a partial, illustration of the subject ; but 
they may serve as a starting point to the reader's 
own reflections, and as landmarks to indicate the 
track which his investigations must take in order to 
a full and just appreciation of the pecuniary advan- 
tages which may accrue to a nation from this 
source. 

The connexion of sound popular education with 
the purity and perpetuity of its political institu- 
tions, was the third consideration suggested as 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 89 

Solemn Trust Committed to our Citizens. Influence of our Example. 

showing that it is the duty of a free state to make 
adequate legal provision for the instruction of all 
her children. The discussion of this topic will 
now claim your attention; but only for a very 
brief space. 

To the citizens of the United States is com- 
mitted the solemn charge of perpetuating that 
liberty, and of maintaining those institutions, civil, 
social, literary, and religious, which it cost our 
fathers so much blood and treasure to establish ; — 
institutions, which are at once the pride of our 
own country and the hope of the world. Yes — 
and I say it in no spirit of vain-glorious boasting, 
but with a deep impression of the responsibihty 
which our position involves— we stand upon an 
eminence such as few nations have ever occupied. 
We are as a city set on a hill, whose light cannot 
be hid. The eyes of the world are upon us, — one 
portion regarding us with anxious but trembling 
hope, the other with a fiendish desire to see our 
fair prospects blasted, our honour prostrate in the 
dust, and our greatness and very existence among 
the things that w^ere. Be assured, be assured, that 
our fall will be the triumph of despotism, and the 
knell of liberty throughout the world. The same 
pile of ruins in which our constitution lies en- 
tombed, will cover the ardent hopes and cherished 
expectations of the friends of freedom every where, 

8^ 



90 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Our Political Fabric endangered by the Facility with which Foreigners Vote, 

To maintain our free institutions, then, and to 
transmit them unimpaired to posterity, is no light 
trust, to be committed to rash hands and rasher 
heads. It is pregnant with the fate of empires. 
In its issue, are involved, for ages to come, the 
happiness or misery of a large portion of the 
civilized world. It is a trust most solemn in its 
nature, and the due execution of which demands, 
in every citizen, knowledge and judgment, as well 
as patriotism and vigilance. 

It is not to be disguised that our political fabric 
is encompassed with dangers, and that there are 
elements of destruction at work among us, which, 
if left to operate without check or control, will ere 
long cause it to totter to its fall. I speak not this as 
a politician. The dangers to which I allude spring 
from our circumstances. They are inherent in our 
political organization as a nation, and our moral 
constitution as men. They would therefore exist, 
whatever party might chance to have the ascend- 
ancy for the time being. These dangers are nu- 
merous and multiform ; but the two whose influ- 
ence is most to be dreaded are, in my opinion, the 
facility with which foreigners are admitted to vote 
at our elections, and the loss of a proper inde- 
pendence of judgment and action in our own peo- 
ple, and a consequent susceptibility of being sway- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. Ql 

And by the Want of a Proper Independence in our own People. 

ed to their own hurt by artful, selfish, and unprin- 
cipled party leaders. 

Let me here guard against misapprehension and 
misconstruction. We have had, and still have, many 
naturalized citizens, whose talents and virtues are 
an ornament to our country ; men of enlightened 
views and ardent patriotism ; men sound to the core 
in their political and moral principles, and forward 
in every patriotic enterprise; men, in short, whose 
pubhc services are a part of our national glory, 
and who are justly regarded as among the pil- 
lars of the state. It is not of such that I speak. 
I refer to that overflowing tide of immigration 
w^hich disgorges upon our shores its annual thou- 
sands and tens of thousands of Europe's most de- 
graded population ; men without knowledge, with- 
out virtue, without patriotism, and with nothing to 
lose in the issue of any election. Are these per- 
sons fit depositories of political power? Have 
they any of that attachment to our institutions, 
and that knowledge of our form of government, 
which are essential to its safe exercise ? Surely, 
either the honesty or the intelligence of the man 
who could maintain such a position, might well 
be questioned. There is danger, there must be 
danger, impending over us from this source, as 
well as from the other. 

Now what is the remed}'^ for each? The pro- 



92 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Education the only remedy. Universal suffrage— a blessing or a curse. 

per remedy against the first mentioned of these 
dangers, would be a change in our naturalization 
laws ; but such a change can scarcely be anti- 
cipated. The only practicable antidote to this, 
the only effectual safe-guard against the other, the 
only sure palladium of our liberties, is in so tho- 
rough an education of all our own citizens as shall 
nullify foreign influence, so far as it is dangerous, 
and secure real personal independence in the na- 
tives of the soil. Our very freedom will prove our 
bane, unless the people, the original source of all 
power, are so far enlightened as to be able to 
exercise the various functions of power aright. 
Universal suffrage, like many other things in 
this contradictor}^ world, is either a blessing or 
a curse, according to circumstances. It is a 
blessing to a nation whose citizens use it with in- 
telligence ; it would be a curse to any people so far 
w^anting in that attribute as to allow themselves 
to be made mere tools in the hands of ambitious 
demagogues. It is possible that a nation may be well 
governed, where the body of the people are igno- 
rant; but it must be a government in which the 
people have no voice. Russia is governed with 
ability, but what imagination can paint the horrid 
scenes that would ensue upon the sudden introduc- 
tion there of the right of universal suffrage ? 
Freedom under such circumstances would be the 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 93 

Intelligence and Virtue our only Safeguard. 

most terrible of cUrses. It would become an in- 
strument of destruction, to be dreaded in propor- 
tion to the degree in which it was possessed. No, 
the ability to reflect, examine, and judge, and the 
possession of elevated virtue, each attainable for 
the most part only through the instrumentality of 
education, are essential to the safe enjoyment and 
useful exercise of the privileges of freemen. It is 
a truth which we all acknowledge, but which we 
do not lay to heart as we ought, that intelligence 
and virtue are the bulwarks of a free government, 
that education is the parent of all true personal 
independence, and that in proportion to our intel- 
lectual and moral illumination will be our chances 
of surviving, in the vigour of perpetual manhood, 
the operation of those causes which have under- 
mined all preceding republics, and which are al- 
ready at work for our ruin. And let it not be for- 
gotten that the importance of education is increas- 
ing every year in proportion to the vast influx of 
foreign voters, the increase of our native popula- 
tion, and the expansion of our people over a wider 
territory. 

The strength and permanency even of the Ce- 
lestial Empire, strange as it may seem, depend 
upon her literary institutions and her various edu- 
cational establishments. Behold the testimony of 
a recent intelligent traveller on this point. 



94 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

The Chinese Empire dependent on her Literary Institutions for Strength. 

" The Literary Institutions of China," says Mr. 
Roberts, in his embassy to the Eastern Courts 
of Cochin China, Siam, and Muscat, " are the 
pillars that give stability to the governnnent. Her 
military forces are utterly inadequate to hold to- 
gether the numerous extensive provinces and ter- 
ritories, that constitute the wide dominions of the 
reigning dynasty. With great difficulty the Tar- 
tar troops overrun the country ; conquering pro- 
vince after province, and gradually extending their 
authority over the territories on the west of China 
Proper. But for a long period both the discipline 
and the energies of the Chinese soldiery have been 
on the wane: and at this moment the imperial 
hosts present nothing formidable but their numeri- 
cal amount; the recent insurrections at Leen-chow 
and Formosa, have afforded the most complete 
evidence of this imbecility. Not only in this part 
of the empire, but along the whole coast up to the 
great wall on the north, and even beyond that in 
Mantchou Tartary, both the land and naval forces 
have become so exceedingly enervated and disso- 
lute, that they exercise no salutary influence or 
control, except over a few, who are equally de- 
based with themselves. As police-men, in the ca- 
pacity of lictors, thief-takers, and executioners, 
they are not less detested than feared by the com- 
mon people ; they are in fact, for all purposes of 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 95 

Learning indispensable to those who aspire to Places of Authority. 

defence, little better than dead men; were they 
stricken from the catalosjne of the living, we can 
scarcely doubt that the stability of the empire 
would remain unimpaired. 

" There are many who look with astonishment 
at the magnitude of this empire, and believe it 
strong and immovable as the everlasting hills. 
But an examination of its history and present 
organization, would show them that it has been 
frequently rent and broken by rebel chieftains, 
ambitious statesmen, and haughty kings; and that 
its present greatness is chiefly attributable to its 
peculiar literary institutions. These, though they 
are the glory and strength of the nation, are, ex- 
cept for mere purposes of government, amazingly 
deficient ; and it is their relative, rather than intrin- 
sic value, that renders them worthy of special 
notice. Wealth and patronage have great influ- 
ence here ; they often control the acts of govern- 
ment, stay the course of justice, cover the guilty, 
and confer honours and emoluments on the unde- 
serving. But as a general rule, learning, while it 
is an indispensable prerequisite for all those who 
aspire to places of trust and authority in the state, 
is sure to command respect, influence, and dis- 
tinction. 

" Thus, without the dreadful alternative of over- 
throwing the powers that be, a way is opened to 



96 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

The most distinguished Statesmen rise to Eminence by Intellectual Effort. 

ambitious youth, by which he may reach the 
highest station in the empire; the throne only 
excepted. Usually the most distinguished states- 
men are those who have risen to eminence by 
intellectual efforts : they are at once the philoso- 
phers, the teachers, and rulers of the land. These 
distinctions they cannot however maintain, with- 
out yielding implicit obedience to the will of the 
monarch, which is most absolute and uncontrolled. 
Let them honour and obey the power that is over 
them, and they stand ; dependant indeed on the 
one hand, but on the other, in proud and envied 
distinction. 

" High rank in the state is the brightest glory 
to which this people aspire ; with them, learning 
derives its chief value from the simple fact, that 
it brings them within the reach of that dazzling 
prize. Strict examinations, regulated by a fixed 
code of laws, have been instituted and designed 
solely to elicit from the body of the community 
the " true talent" of the people, with the ulterior 
intention of applying it to purposes of government. 
At these examinations, which are open to all ex- 
cept menial servants, lictors, players, and priests, 
it is determined who shall rise to distinction and 
shed glory on their ancestors and posterity — who 
shall Hve on in obscurity and die and be forgotten. 
The competitors of the Olympic games never en- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 97 



Lord Bacon's celebrated Aphorism forcibly illustrated. 

tered the arena before the assembled thousands of 
their countrynaen, with deeper enaotion than that 
which agitates the bosonns of those who contest 
the palm of these literary combats. The days on 
which they are held, and their results published in 
Canton, are the proudest which its inhabitants ever 
witness." 

How true is the celebrated aphorism of Lord 
Bacon, that " knowledge is power!" It has been 
so in all ages and in every clime. It is a mighty 
instrument either for good or for evil. What a 
noble incentive this to labour for its acquisition ! 
and how fearful the responsibility which the pos- 
session of it involves ! 

The Chinese government, the purest form of 
despotism on earth, the slow growth of uncounted 
ages, is upheld, and its vigour perpetuated, by 
Educatiok. How forcible the argument thence 
derivable in favour of this exalted and exalting 
quality ! And if it has force as applicable to such 
a country as China, it applies, as the logicians 
say, a fortiori, to civil institutions based, as ours 
are, on the principles of freedom and equality, 
and depending, confessedly, on the intelligence 
and virtue of the people for their security and 
vigour. 

Now to sum up. It has been shown, I would 
fain trust conclusively, that the prevalence of good 

9 



98 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Summing up of the Argument. Necessity of Popular Education. 

and thorough systems of popular education in the 
several members of our confederacy, would exalt 
the character of our citizens, and greatly augment 
their happiness in their civil, domestic, and indi- 
vidual relations ; that every new degree of excel- 
lence in our primary schools, and every successive 
approach towards perfection in the system of edu- 
cation and universality in the enjoyment of its 
benefits, would add millions to the wealth of the 
nation where it abstracted only thousands; and 
that such education is inseparably connected with 
the right discharge of our duties as freemen, 
with the perpetuity of our glorious constitution, 
and with the progress of liberal principles and free 
institutions throughout the world. 

These considerations must establish, if any thing 
can, the great, the paramount, the overshadowing 
importance, nay, the absolute necessity, of general 
education in a country like ours, and consequently 
the duty of the states to make adequate provision 
for it, and then to watch that the means adopted 
for that purpose be faithfully employed. For, it 
would be a position scarcely worthy of serious 
refutation, it would be in contradiction to all the 
lights of experience and observation, it would 
be little better than trifling, to contend that educa- 
tion can become universal and thorough, in a 
country where the government manifests no solici- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 99 

Duty of Government in this Matter. Bulwer'g opinion. 

tude in its behalf, and puts fortii no exertions to 
promote it.* 



* Mr. Bulwer, in his work on England and the EngUsh, ar- 
gues forcibly in support of this position. He says: — "Never 
was this truth more clearly displayed than in the state of our 
popular education. Behold our numberless charities sown 
through the land. Where is their fruit ? What better meant, 
or what more abused ? In no country has the education of the 
poor been more largely endowed by individuals — it fails — and 
why ? — Because in no country has it been less regarded by 

THE GOVERNMENT." 



100 



CHAPTER 11. 

BRANCHES OF STUDY PROPER FOR COMMON 
SCHOOLS. 

Preliminary Inquiry into the Nature and Object of Education — 
This Term, in its broadest sense, comprehends all the Influ- 
ences which act upon Man— These Influences ranged by Fos- 
ter under five Heads — A Sixth added — Education produces 
two classes of Effects — Important in both Aspects, and why — > 
Object of Education — Complex Nature of Man must be consi- 
dered — His Relations must be understood — These Relations 
pointed out — His Destination — His Relations and Destina- 
tion indicate the Education suited to his Nature — Education 
should be such as to develope our Powers, communicate useful 
Knowledge, and form the Disposition and the Habit of Virtue 
■ — A System of Popular Education should prescribe a Course 
of Study — Text-Books prescribed by Law in Saxe Weimar — • 
Analytical Description of them — Course of Study enjoined by 
Law upon the Primary Schools of Prussia — The Prussian sys- 
tem decried in an Article in the first Number of the Democra- 
tic Review — Sophistry of the Argument, and Illiberality of 
the Attack — Our Common Schools compared with those of 
Saxe Weimar and Prussia—Their Inferiority — Limited Course 
of Studies — Superficial Nature of the Instructions given — In- 
difference of Parents — A Fundamental Reform necessary — 
List of Studies should be extended — Instruction should be 
made more thorough — Enumeration of Branches proper to be 
introduced into Common Schools — Objection to the Course re^ 
commended " that it would consume too much time," answer- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 101 



Education comprehends every Influence that modifies Character. 

ed — The Author's Views confirmed by the Course of Study re- 
commended by Dick — Necessity of Moral and Religious In- 
struction insisted upon more at large — Religious Education 
the Foundation of all good Character — Essential to the full 
Advantage of Intellectual Education — Objection to the Intro- 
duction of Religious Instruction into Popular Schools — Not 
founded in Reason — Government owes Christianity a heavy 
Debt, and is bound, as far as possible, to discharge it — The 
awakening of Sectarian Jealousies apprehended — Method by 
which these are allayed in Prussia — Can it not be done in this 
Country ? — Weight of Authority in favour of Religious In- 
struction in Schools — Opinions of Simpson, Bulwer, Cousin, 
and Dick, on this Question — The objection to Universal Edu- 
cation, " that it would raise the Labouring Classes above their 
Sphere," considered and answered — Objection to the Plan re- 
commended founded on the Principle " that each Parent ought 
to educate his own Children" — This Objection based on Sel- 
fishness — A just Comprehension of the Selfish Principle itself 
refutes it. 



Having established this point, let us, in the next 
place, inquire what branches of study it would be 
proper and desirable to introduce into a system of 
common school instruction. Preliminary to this, 
however, a brief inquiry into the nature and object 
of education may not be out of place. 

What, then, is education ? And what the main 
object it ought to aim to accomplish ? 

Education, in its broadest meaning, compre- 
hends all those influences, of whatever kind, and 
in whatsoever manner exerted, which go to form 

9* 



102 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

These Influences classified. Education produces two Classes of Effects. 

or to modify human character. Foster has ranged 
these influences under five divisions, which include 
at least the most important of them : — viz. direct 
instruction, reading, companionship, the scenes of 
nature, and the state of society. He might perhaps 
have added, as the source of a distinct class of in- 
fluences, though in some sense included in his clas- 
sification, parental authority, and those powerful 
home associations, which exert an enduring effect 
on the characters of most men, which occasion- 
ally stay the uplifted hand of the hardened sinner, 
and prevent the accompKshment of some deed of 
meditated villany, and which sometimes even re- 
store to the bosom of domestic love, and to the 
hope of a life to come, the wandering prodigal, 
who had wasted his substance in riotous living, or 
been driven from society for his flagitious prac- 
tices. 

In this sense the whole of life is but a long course 
of education ; and the church edifice, the hall of 
legislation, the popular assembly, the theatre, the 
race-course, the bar-room, the very streets of our 
cities, are as really places of education, as the 
school-room or the college. 

This complex training produces two classes of 
effects : it developes the physical, moral, and in- 
tellectual powers of man ; and it forms and ma- 
tures his habits. Viewed in either aspect, it is im- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 103 

Impossible to overrate its Importance. Why. 

possible to overrate its importance. But why im- 
possible ? If man were like the brute that obeys 
his superior intelligence, born to consume the 
fruits of the earth, to flutter through his brief hour 
of life, and then to disappear entirely from the 
scene of existence, to undergo a complete absorp' 
tion, an utter annihilation of his powers of enjoy- 
ment and of suffering, sarcasm might exhaust its 
powers of ridicule without doing justice to the fol- 
ly of toiling for that which we call education. 
" Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," 
would then be a maxim embodying the very quint- 
essence of wisdom ; an aphorism worthy of a So- 
crates, or a Seneca. No ; it is the nature and the 
relations of man, his immortality, and his accoun- 
tability alone, which render his education an affair 
of the smallest moment, and these make it a thing 
not merely of considerable, but of incalculable 
magnitude. Eternity, to borrow in part an idea 
of Robert Hall's, invests every thing in any way 
connected with it, with a mysterious and awful 
importance, entirely its own, and is the only pro- 
perty in the creation which gives that weight and 
moment to whatever it attaches, compared with 
which all interests which know a period, fade in^ 
to the most contemptible insignificance. 

These remarks lead us naturally to the second 
branch of our present inquiry, viz. the object of 



104 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Object of Education. Complex Nature of Man considered. 

education. In considering the subject in this re- 
lation, it is evident that we must exclude from our 
thoughts, or at least embrace only incidentally, 
all those classes of influences enumerated above, 
except one, — that is, those arising from direct in- 
struction. 

Man is a being extremely complex in the 
structure of his mind and body, and having nume- 
rous relations both to other beings of the same 
species, and to different orders of the creation. 
Considered in the former of these respects, he pos- 
sesses various powders, susceptible of a high degree 
of enlargement and cultivation, but liable at the 
same time to numberless disorders, to temporary 
suspensions of their activity, to positive perversion 
of their uses, and some of them to final extinction. 
Considered in the latter respect, he is bound by a 
variety of obligations, corresponding to, or rather 
arising from, the relations in which he stands to 
other beings. Considered in both respects — in 
reference to his whole being — he has duties of high 
significance to perform; a destiny of momentous 
import to fulfil; a race to run, in which immortality 
is the prize. The legitimate object of education, 
and the real one, when it is not misdirected by 
folly, or perverted by wickedness to frivolous or 
sinister ends, is to place man in a condition in 
which he may most fully answer these high pur- 



HINTS OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 105 

Education fits Man to answer the ends of his Creation. 

poses of his creation ; where he may most readily 
fall in with, and most effectually help forward, the 
Divine intention concerning him. 

Now, in order to accomplish this, three condi- 
tions are necessary ; — his powers must be deve- 
loped, his mind stored with knowledge, and his 
habits formed to industry and virtue. This is^ob- 
vious; but it does not yet appear what exactly 
ought to be the character of the developement, the 
know^ledge, and the habits referred to. In order 
to determine this question, his powers, his relations, 
and his destination must be understood. The first 
mentioned of these properties belong to the depart- 
ment of the physiologist and the metaphysician, 
the second to that of the moral philosopher, and 
the third to that of the minister of religion ; but all 
fall fairly within the province of the educationist. 
The first, however, we shall pass by as not parti- 
cularly pertinent to our present aim. Let us 
briefly inquire into the two latter. 

What are the most important of those relations 
which man, as a rational and moral creature, sus- 
tains to other beings'? First in the order of time, 
and most momentous in their consequences, are 
those in which he stands to the Creator, as his off- 
spring, his beneficiary, his revolted subject, and 
that new relation of gracious fellowship and son- 
ship created by the stupendous phenomenon of 



106 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Man's Relations explained. His Immortal Destination. 

mediatorial and redeeming love. Next come his 
complex and multiplied relations to his fellow man, 
embracing those which he bears to the great bro- 
therhood of humanity, the country to which he 
owes allegience, the neighbourhood which is the 
sphere of his more immediate influence, and the 
domestic circle of which he forms a part, either as 
head or member ; each class of relations involving 
a distinct class of obligations, and the whole com- 
prehending a range of duties, differing indeed in 
importance, but none of them unimportant, and, 
in the aggregate, demanding unwearied diligence 
and the utmost exertion of his powers. Then fol- 
low his relations to the inferior orders of animated 
existence, and to the powers and productions of 
inanimate nature. These do not perhaps impose 
any positive duties upon him, except that of treat- 
ing with humanity all that has life ; but — and this 
is a consideration of far greater consequence — 
they are capable, if rightly understood, of render- 
ing him most essential aid in the performance of 
his other duties. 

What is the destination of man ? It is needless 
to waste words in replying to this question. True, 
the immortality of the soul may be demonstrated 
by the naked powers of reason, and even the doc- 
trine of a future retribution strongly inferred from 
facts and principles within our reach, apart froi^ 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 107 

Developement of his Powers. Attainment of Knowledge. Habits. 

any communication from Heaven. But Divine 
Revelation has saved us the necessity of doing 
this. On its every page Immortality and Judg- 
ment TO COME stand out in letters of light. It 
teaches us further that this world is a place of 
trial and training for the next, and that our cha- 
racters here will determine our destiny there. 

Are not these views pertinent to our present 
inquiry ? Do they not throw light upon the point 
under consideration ? Do they not, in fact, clearly 
point out and define the object which education 
ought to propose to accomplish 'I — viz. such a de- 
velopement of our powers, animal and rational, 
the attainment of such and so much knowledge, 
and the formation of such habits, as far as circum- 
stances will permit, as will fit us to discharge most 
successfully and usefully the various duties which 
our relations impose upon us. In other words, 
and more specifically, the object of education is, 
or should be, to make man reflective, moral, pru- 
dent, healthy, industrious, skilful in business, inde- 
pendent in feeling, and truly religious. 

A state has not done all its duty in regard to 
education, when it has established schools and 
made provision for their support ; nor even when 
it has provided good teachers and established an 
organization that ensures a faithful discharge of 
duty in the various functionaries employed. No 



108 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Course of Study should be prescribed. First Class-book in Saxe Weimar. 

system of popular education can be considered as 
at all perfect, which does not prescribe, I do not 
say, the particular books to be used, or the speci- 
fic methods of instruction, but at least some gene- 
ral outline of the course of study to be pursued — 
the branches of knowledge to be communicated. 
This is done in those European states, where the 
instruction of the people is made an affair of go- 
vernment. In the Grand Duchy of Saxe Weimar, 
even the class-books are prescribed, the same be- 
ing used in all the primary schools throughout the 
realm. Permit me to call your attention to these 
books. They are four in number, and of the fol- 
lowing purport : — 

The first class-book is destined for the youngest 
children ; it contains, in regular gradations, the 
composition of syllables, punctuation, elementary 
formation of language, simple stories, sentences or 
proverbs of one verse or upwards, diverse selec- 
tions, sketches, &c. " The sentences," says Mr. 
Cousin, " struck me particularly ; they contain, in 
the most agreeable shapes, the most valuable les- 
sons, which the author classes under systematic 
titles, such as, our duties to ourselves, our duties 
to men, our duties to God, and the knowledge of 
his divine attributes, — so that, in the germ of lite- 
rature, the infant receives also the germ of morals 
and of religion." 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 109 

The Second and Third Class-Books in Saxe Weimar. 

The second book, for the use of children from 
eight to ten, is not composed merely of amusing 
sketches, — the author touches upon matters of ge- 
neral utility. He proceeds on the just idea that 
the knowledge of the faculties of the soul ought a 
little to precede the more profound explanations 
of religion : under the head of dialogue between 
a father and his children, the book treats, first, of 
man and his physical qualities ; secondly, of the 
nature of the soul and of its faculties, with some 
notions of our powers of progressive improvement 
and our heritage of immortality ; and, thirdly, it 
contains the earliest and simplest elements of na- 
tural history, botany, mineralogy, &c. 

The third work contains two parts, each divided 
into two chapters. The first part is an examina- 
tion of man as a rational animal, — it involves these 
questions : What am I ? What am I able to do ? 
What ought I to do t It teaches the distinction be- 
tween men and brutes, instinct and reason ; it 
endeavours to render the great moral foundations 
of truth clear and simple, by familiar images and 
the most intelligible terms. 

As the first chapter of this portion exercises the 
more reflective faculties, so the second does not 
neglect the more acute, and comprises songs, 
enigmas, fables, aphorisms, &c. 

The second part of the third work contains, 

10 



110 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

The Fourth. Elementary Schools of Prussia. 

first, the elements of natural history, in all its sub- 
divisions, notions of geography, of the natural 
rights of man, of his civil rights ; w^ith some les- 
sons of general history* An appendix comprises 
the geography and especial history of Saxe Wei- 
mar. 

The fourth book, not adapted solely for Saxe 
Weimar, is in great request throughout all Ger- 
many. It addresses itself to the more advanced 
pupils. It resembles, a little, the work last de- 
scribed, but is more extensive on some points. It 
is equally various, but it treats in especial more 
minutely on the rights and duties of subjects; it 
proceeds to conduct the boy, already made ra- 
tional as a being, to his duties as a citizen. 

Such are the four class-books in the popular 
schools of Saxe Weimar. Such is the foundation 
of that united, intellectual, and lofty spirit which 
marks the subjects of that principality.* 

In Prussia, a country which exhibits the extra- 
ordinary spectacle of a despotic government and 
fhe most paternal anxiety, as well as the wisest 
plan, for the education of all the people, the popu- 
lar schools are divided into two classes, — termed 
elementary schools, and burgher schools. The 

* SeeBulwer's England and the English, Book II., Chap. 3. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. m 

Course of Study traced out and enjoined by Law. 

text-books in these schools are not prescribed, but 
the course of study is traced out and enjoined 
by law. 

The law thus summarily sets forth the object of 
tlie national education, and the branches of knovv^- 
ledge it must include : — " To develope the faculties 
of the soul, the reason, the senses, and the physical 
frame. It shall embrace religion and morals, the 
knowledge of size and numbers, of nature and of 
man, the exercises of the body, vocal music, draw- 
ing, and writing." It then goes on in detail as 
follows : — 

Every elementary school includes necessarily 
the following objects : 

Religious instruction for the formation of mo- 
rality, according to the positive truths of Chris- 
tianity, 

The language of the country. 

The elements of geometry and the general prin- 
ciples of drawing. 

Practical arithmetic. 

The elements of physical philosophy, of geo- 
graphy, of general history ; but especially the his- 
tory of the pupil's own country. These branches 
of knowledge to be taught and retaught as often 
as possible, by the opportunities afforded in learn- 
ing to read and write, independently of the parti- 
cular and special lessons given upon those subjects. 



112 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Burgher Schools. Studies pursued in them. 

The art of song — to develope the voice of chil- 
dren, to elevate their minds, and to improve and 
ennoble both popular and sacred melodies. 

Writing and the gymnastic exercises, which 
fortify all our senses, especially that of sight. 

The more simple of the manual arts, and some 
instructions upon manual labour. 

In the burgher schools, are taught, conform- 
ably to the provisions of the law, the following 
branches : 

Religion and morals. 

The national tongue; reading, composition, ex 
ercises of style and of the invention ; the study of 
the national classics. 

Latin is taught to all children, under certain 
limitations, in order to exercise their understand- 
ings ; even whether or not they are destined to 
advance to the higher schools, or to proceed, at 
once, to their professions or trades. 

The elements of mathematics, and an accurate 
and searching study of practical arithmetic. 

Physical philosophy, so far as the more import- 
ant phenomena of nature are concerned. 

Geography and history combined, so as to give 
the pupil a knowledge of the divisions of the earth, 
and of the history of the world. Prussia, its his- 
tory, laws, and constitution, shall be the object of 
especial study. 



-< 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 113 

This Education given by Prussia to all her Children. 

The principles of drawing, at all occasions. 

Writing, singing, and gynnnastic exercises. 

" Such," says the author of England and the 
English, " is the programme of the education of 
elementary schools in Prussia ; an education that 
exercises the reason, enlightens the morals, forti- 
fies the body, and founds the disposition to labour 
and independence. This is the education given 
by Prussia to all her children. Observe, here is no 
theory — no programme of untried experiments: 
this is the actual education, actually given, and 
actually received. It is computed that thirteen 
out of fifteen children, from the age of seven to 
that of fourteen, are at the public schools; the 
remaining two are probably at the private schools, 
or educated at home ; so that the ivhole are edu- 
cated — and thus educated ! Observe, this is no 
small and petty state, easily managed and con- 
trolled; it is a country that spreads over large 
tracts, various tribes, different languages, multi- 
form religions : the energy of good government 
has conquered all these difficulties. But what, 
Sir,* you will admire in the Prussian system, is 
not the laws of education only, but the spirit that 
framed and pervades the laws — the full apprecia- 



* Dr. Chalmers is the gentleman here addressed, 
10* 



114 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Prussian System of Education decried in tiie Democratic Review. 

tion of the dignity and objects of men — of the 
duties of citizens — of the powers, and equality, 
and inheritance of the human soul. And yet in 
that country the people are said to be less free 
than in ours ! — how immeasurably more the peo- 
ple are regarded P^ 

There is an article in the first number of a 
literary journal, recently established at the City 
of Washington, in which the Prussian system is 
attacked and decried as in no respect suited to this 
country, because, forsooth, Prussia is a monarchy! 
If the w-riter of said article means by this that it is 
not adapted to our use, because it teaches the laws 
and constitution of Prussia, so far I agree with 
him ; but if he means that the great principle which 
is recognised as the basis of the system — viz. the 
necessity of a thorough education of all the people 
— and the wisdom and liberality with which that 
principle is carried out in its application, are at 
war either with our interests or our institutions, 
then, gentlemen, your own good sense shall be my 
only argument to refute him. I forbear to cha- 
racterise his sophistry in the terms which it richly 
merits. Seme good things can come out of Na- 
zareth. Let us not be guilty of the flagrant illi- 
berality of refusing to applaud and to imitate what 
is intrinsically excellent, because it happens to have 
originated with monarchists instead of republicans, 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 115 

Inferiority of our Schools. Buhver's Account of English Schools. 

and to exist on the southern coast of the Baltic in- 
stead of the western shores of the Atlantic ocean. 

How poor and meager, in comparison with the 
education which Prussia and Saxe Weimar give 
to all their children, is that afforded by the gene- 
rality of our common schools ! Bulwer's descrip- 
tion of the state of things in the elementary schools 
of England, is much more applicable to ours. — 
" Generally," says he, *' throughout the primary 
schools, nothing is taught but a little spelling, a 
very little reading, still less writing, the catechism, 
the Lord's prayer, and an unexplained, uneluci- 
dated chapter or two in the Bible ; add to these 
the nasal mastery of a hymn, and an undecided 
conquest over the rule of Addition, and you behold 
a very finished education of the poor." 

I would not indulge in sarcasm, or be unjust, on 
such a subject as this. Even were I so disposed 
myself (which I am not), I am sure such a course 
would not meet with your approbation. I am free 
to admit, therefore, that this would not be a fair 
picture of our popular schools. Nevertheless, 
what do these institutions actually accomplish in 
the way of disciplining the powers of their pupils, 
and imparting knowledge? It would scarcely be 
unfair to say that, in a large proportion of them, the 
faculty of observation and comparison is not de- 
veloped, nor the art of reflection taught, at all. And 



116 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

List of Studies pursued in our Schools. Wherein deficient. 

as to the knowledge they communicate, reading, 
spelling, writing, arithmetic, geography, and gram- 
mar, form generally the entire catalogue of studies 
in their courses of instruction. In reference to 
many of them even this list must be abridged, and in 
respect to still more, the branches enumerated are 
both imperfectly taught, and pursued to a very in- 
considerable extent. The dignity of man, the 
powers of the human soul, the education of the 
senses, our rights and duties as men and citizens, 
and the works of the Creator by which we are 
surrounded, are subjects w^hich, as you well know, 
are never dreamed of in the philosophy of most of 
our primary schoolmasters. The masters them- 
selves are for the most part ignorant on these 
points, and multitudes of parents w^ould oppose 
their introduction into school as branches of study. 
I have even heard of a father who objected to his 
children learning geography, on the sage ground 
thfit he did not learn it himself, and had never felt 
the want of it! Yet, notwithstanding all this, we 
are apt to think and speak of our common schools 
as superior to those of all other countries; and 
even Mr. Dick has been imposed upon by our 
boastings, and assigns us the first place in this 
respect, in his work on the Mental Illumination 
and Moral Improvement of Mankind. The state- 
ments made a little above, respecting the schools of 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. in 

Our good Opinion of ourselves. It is a flattering Delusion. 

Saxe Weimar and Prussia, must convince all, who 
are not steeled against conviction, that this opinion 
is but a flattering delusion, the offspring of an un- 
founded and overweening self-complacency.* 



* The following view is given by Mr. Simpson of the " edu- 
cation of the humble classes" in England and Scotland. With 
some abatements, it is applicable to a large portion of the schools 
in this country. I give the extract, for the soundness of its doc- 
trines, beseeching all to read and ponder it thoroughly : — " But 
we come to the question, what is the nature of the education of 
the humbler classes which is extending in England, and has been 
so long established in Scotland? Is it of a kind to impart useful 
practical knowledge for resource in life — does it communicate to 
the pupil any light upon the important subject of his own nature 
and place in creation, — on the conditions of his physical welfare, 
and his intellectual and moral happiness ; — does it, above all, 
make an attempt to regulate his passions, and train and exercise 
his moral feelings, to prevent his prejudices, suspicions, envying, 
self-conceit, vanity, impracticability, destructiveness, cruelty, and 
sensuality ? Alas ! No. It teaches him to read, write, and 
CIPHER, and leaves him to pick up all the rest as he may ! It 
forms an instructive example of the sedative effect of established 
habits of thinking, that our ancestors and ourselves have so con- 
tentedly held Tins to be education, or the shadow of it, for any 
rank of society ! Reading, writing, and ciphering, are mere in- 
struments ; when attained, as they rarely or never are, after all, 
by the working class to a reasonable perfection, they leave the 
pupil exactly in the situation where he would find himself, were 
we to put tools into his hands, the use of which, however, he must 
learn as he may. We know well that he will be much more 
prone to misapply his tools, and to cut himself with them, than 
to use them aright. So it is with his reading; for really any 



118 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Necessity of a radical Reform of our Common Schools. 

There is need of a fundamental reform of our 
common schools with respect to the branches 



writing and accounting of this class, even the most respectable 
of them, scarcely deserve the name, and may be here put out of 
the account. Reading consists in the recognition of printed 
characters arranged into syllables and words. With this most 
abstract accomplishment may coexist unregulated propensities, 
selfish passions, sensual appetites, filthy and intemperate habits, 
profound intellectual darkness and moral debasement, all adher- 
ing to a man as closely after as before he could read ; and, be it 
remarked, these qualities will give their bias to his future volun- 
tary reading, and assuredly degrade and vitiate its character ; it 
will tend to strengthen his prejudices, deepen his superstitions, 
flatter his passions, and excite his animal appetites. Well is all 
this known to the agitator, the quack, and the corrupter. They 
know that the manual-labourer can read ; but they knove, as well, 
that he is incapable of thinking, or detecting their impositions, 
if they only flatter his passions. No just views of life have ever 
been given him, no practical knowledge of his actual position in 
the social system. We are always told that the majority of 
criminals cannot read, as if the [mere faculty of reading would 
have diminished the number of criminals. This is a great de- 
lusion. For the reasons I have stated, mere reading might have 
increased the number of criminals, it would be quite ineff^ective 
in diminishing them. But if the investigation Iiad gone the 
length of ascertaining with which of the criminals had an at- 
tempt at moral training and useful knowledge ever been made, 
w^e should have found that column of the table a blank, and 
something like cause and eflTect would begin to dawn upon us. 
It is needless to pursue so obvious a matter further. If a na- 
tional system of education is to stop at reading, writing, and 
ciphering, it would save much trouble and after disappointment 
not to attempt ii at all." 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. Hg 



List of Studies should be enlarged. Instruction made more thorough. 



taught in them. The list of studies should include 
many now entirely omitted, and those already 
embraced in it ought to be pursued far beyond 
what they are at present. The right which, as 
American citizens, we most value, is the elective 
franchise ; but how can this right be usefully ex- 
ercised, unless those Vv'ho enjoy it possess some 
knowledge of general history, and especially of 
the history and constitution of their own country ? 
But this knowledge, if possessed at all, must, as a 
general thing, be acquired at school; at least the 
foundation of it must be laid there. But not only 
should all the youth of our land learn so much of 
the history of other times and nations, and of the 
history, constitution, and laws of their own coun- 
try, as will enable them to exercise the right of 
suffrage wisely; they ought also to form some 
acquaintance with the manifold and wonderful 
works of the Creator. The elements of natural 
history, botany, mineralogy, chemistry, anatomy, 
physiology, and physical philosophy, when taught 
with sensible illustrations and appropriate experi- 
ments, are all perfectly level to the understanding 
of children, and admirably adapted to develope 
their faculties of observation and reason, to excite 
a thirst for knowledge, to form them to habits of 
reflection, and to awaken in their souls, ere yet 
the well-springs of life have been poisoned, those 



120 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Enumeration of Studies. Christian Religion indispensable. 

sentiments of piety, which are the brightest or- 
nament, as they are the sweetest consolation, 
of our degenerate nature. Vocal music, draw- 
ing, public and domestic economy, agriculture, 
and some of the manual arts, ought severally 
to receive their share of attention from the pu- 
pils. The girls ought to have specific instruc- 
tions given them, adapted to prepare them for 
their peculiar duties as wives and mothers. To 
all this should be added some elementary know- 
ledge of the powers and susceptibihties of their 
own minds, especially of their power of progres- 
sive improvement in knowledge and goodness ; 
some instruction on the true relations of their na- 
ture, and the duties originating in them ; and some 
general notion of the evidences on which the truth 
of that religion rests, around which cling their 
hopes of immortality. And religion itself — not the 
peculiar dogmas of some favourite sect — but the 
pure, ennobling, life-giving principle of Christiani- 
ty, as set forth in the teachings and lives of Christ 
and his Apostles, and recorded in the New Testa- 
ment, must form the body and the spirit, the cen- 
tre and the circumference, the beginning, the mid- 
dle, and the end of every wise system of popular 
education. 

It would swell this volume to a size altogether 
beyond my intentions, to enter into a full analysis of 
these various branches of knowledge, a lengthen- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 121 

Objection to this view of what Popular Education ought to be answered. 

ed explanation of their importance to every human 
being, and a laboured defence of them as applica- 
ble to the use and purposes of common schools. 
The author believes, hov^^ever, that it vi^ould not 
be difficult to present such an exposition of these 
matters as would convince all candid men of the 
soundness of his opinions respecting the course of 
study appropriate for popular seminaries. 

It may be objected to the view here given of 
what the education of the people ought to be, that 
it would require too much of the pupil's time. The 
objection is not without a show of reason, but it 
will hardly bear examination. It must be borne 
in mind, first, that, in order to carry these views 
into effect, a body of well trained and experienced 
teachers will be necessary, and that more can be 
learned in one year under a good instructor, than 
in three or four with a poor one ; secondly, that, 
by the expulsion of ill-judged books of extracts, 
and the substitution of books prepared upon more 
philosophical principles, several of these branches 
might be taught in part incidentally, while the pu- 
pil was learning to read ; and, thirdly, that it is no 
part of the plan to make of the labouring classes 
statesmen, theologians, or philosophers, but simply 
to lay the foundation, in sound elementary know- 
ledge, of a superstructure afterwards to be reared, 
suited to the conditions of our being, in harmony 

11 



122 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



These views not visionary nor impracticable. 



with the divine purpose, and worthy of the end for 
which we were created. Besides, Gentlemen, shall 
it be said that the children of freemen, to every 
one of whom the highest honours of his country 
are open, cannot devote as much time to the culti- 
vation of their minds and to preparation for the du- 
ties of life, as the children of despotic govern- 
ments ? Away with such a plea ! It is a foul 
calumny on our institutions. But 1 would be will- 
ing to compromise for a course of common school 
instruction, as comprehensive as that of Prussia or 
Saxe Weimar. 

Some persons, whose notions of the appropriate 
studies of common schools are more or less affect- 
ed by their present low and imperfect standard, 
may be surprised at the extent of the course here 
recommended, and may charge me with entertain- 
ing visionary and impracticable views. To such 
I shall appear as one that dreams, or like the child, 
who, with mimic industry, constructs his house of 
blocks for the idle pleasure of seeing it fall in 
pieces again. I do not fear any such feeling as 
this on your part, but for the satisfaction of these 
persons, and to show them that wiser and better 
men dream in the same way, I ask their attention 
to the branches of learning recommended by Dick, 
who has written much and well on education, as 
proper to be introduced into all popular schools ; 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 123 

Course of Studies recommended by Mr, Dick for Common Schools. 

some of them, however, of course, only in their 
elementary principles. They are English reading, 
writing, and composition; drawing, arithmetic, 
grammar, geography, geology, astronomy, expe- 
rimental philosophy and chemistry, mathematics, 
physiology, the art of reasoning, natural theology, 
natural history, vocal music, public and domestic 
economy, morahty and religion.* Those who 
would see these studies defended at length, and 
their adaptation to the purposes of general educa- 
tion shown, are referred to the sixth and seventh 
chapters of the Mental Illumination and Moral 
Improvement of Mankind. For myself, I am firm- 
ly persuaded that, until something like the course 
of study I have traced out shall be generally adopt- 
ed, or at least, until their senses, their reflective 
powders, and their moral feelings shall be educated, 
in the proper sense of the term, our hardy yeoman- 
ry, the bone and sinew of the land, will never reach 
that mental and moral elevation which every hu- 
man being ought to obtain, and which is, in an es- 



* Permit me, Gentlemen, to call your attention to a remarkable 
omission here, whether it is the result of accident or design. 
Civil history is not so much as alluded to in this enumeration. 
Mr. Dick could not have intended to exclude it altogether. I in- 
cline to the opinion that it is a mere oversight, though certainly 
^. very extraordinary one. 



124 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Necessity of introducing Religious Instruction into all Schools. 

pecial manner, demanded by their peculiar rela- 
tions to our free civil institutions. 

I have expressed the opinion, a very sincere 
one on my part, that no system of popular educa- 
tion can be deemed perfect, or adequate to the 
wants of a free state, which does not prescribe 
and render obligatory the course of studies to be 
pursued in the schools which it calls into being. 
You will have observed also that I have strenu- 
ously urged the necessity of introducing religious 
instruction into schools, and making the study 
of Christian duties a part of the prescribed course. 

All experience demonstrates that the tem'poral 
w^ell-being of individuals, as of nations, is by no 
means secured by a great intellectual developement 
and a refined civilization. The true honour of an 
individual, as of a people, depends on a severe 
morality, on self-control, on humility and modera- 
tion, and on the voluntary performance of all his 
duties towards God and towards his fellow-crea- 
tures. Religious and moral education is conse- 
quently the first want of the people. When this 
is deficient, all other education is often not only 
without real advantage, but it is in some respects 
even dangerous.* If, on the other hand, a good 



* " The Duke of Wharton ; Wilmot, Earl of Rochester ; 
Villers, Duke of Buckingham; and Mirabeau, were in their 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 125 

Religion a necessary foundation of good Character. 

foundation of character has been laid in religious 
education, intellectual education will then be of 
the greatest advantage ; and it ought the less to 
be withheld from the people, inasmuch as the 
Creator has given them the faculty and the dispo- 
sition to acquire it, and the developement of all the 
powers of man puts him in possession of the means 
of arriving at the highest degree of perfection, and 
consequently of securing the greatest amount of 
happiness, attainable in his present state. 

These views will not be contested. There is an 
almost perfect unanimity of opinion on the great 
importance, in the abstract, of cultivating the mo- 
ral feelings and forming the disposition and the 
habits to virtue, which can be effectually done 
only by making the positive truths and precepts 
of Christianity the basis of the instructions im- 
parted. Nevertheless, there is a real difficulty, 
and one of no small magnitude, in this question. 



days distinguished by wit, and taste, and learning-, and know- 
ledg-e; and they were not less distinguished by extravagance, 
revelry, lawless passions, and disregard of moral and social 
virtue. High attainments are tremendous engines for the work- 
ing out of good or evil. If not directed by correct and safe 
principles, they are terrible weapons of ill. The educated rogue 
or infidel is but the more dangerous man." — Mr. Southard's 
Address before the Literary Societies of the College of New 
Jersey. 

11* 



126 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Objections to religious Instruction— Church and State— Sectarianism. 

Multitudes, who admit to the full the correctness 
of the above theory, and many of them men of 
personal piety, start back and stand aghast at the 
bare idea of making religion a necessary part of 
school instruction. They ring the changes on 
church and state, sectarianism, and such like cant 
words and phrases, till they persuade themselves 
and others, that there is real force in what they 
say. And truly there would be force in it, if the 
dangers which they imagine, had any foundation 
in fact. But I cannot help thinking that there is 
a morbid feehng in many minds on this subject, 
which causes them to magnify mole-hills into 
mountains, and to look at every object connected 
with it through a colouring medium. 

Many wdll tell us that the religious education of 
children is a matter which ought to be left entirely 
to parents and to the clerical profession. Do they 
reflect that, in that case, there are numbers who 
would receive no instruction at all, or next to 
none, on the most momentous concern that can 
engage their attention ? Do they know that there 
actually are thousands in this deplorable condition? 
The ignorance of religious truth that prevails in 
this country is amazing. I have myself seen and 
conversed with adults, in the bosom of a Christian 
community, who knew little more than heathen of 
the simplest doctrines of the Christian religion. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 127 

Government benefited by Christianity— Ought to repay the Debt. 

But, they urge, it is at least an affair with which 
Government has nothing to do. If by this be 
meant only that Government has no right to dic- 
tate the religious opinions of the community, then 
we have no controversy ; but if it be meant to as- 
sert that Government has no right to require that 
the great principles of moral duty, principles which 
in fact lie at the foundation of civil liberty, shall 
be taught to the children of the state, then 1 dissent 
in toio from the opinion. What is Government 
that she thus frees herself from obligation ? Has 
she received nothing herself? Has she not 
on her part been incalculably benefited by Chris- 
tianity? Has not her authority been thereby 
enforced, her sanctions confirmed, her title to re- 
spect vindicated, her principles purified, and her 
powers of blessing enlarged ? And is she now to 
turn round upon Christianity, and say to her, — I 
can do nothing in return for all this to promote 
your interests ? Is this to be the measure of her gra- 
titude ? Away with such frigid notions ! For my- 
self, I firmly believe, and I do not hesitate to avow 
it, that the time will come when Christian Govern- 
ments will not only think it expedient to stretch 
their power to the limit here supposed, but will, as 
Governments, embark in the glorious work of 
spreading the blessings of knowledge and religion 
over the world; when kings shall literally be- 
come nursing fathers, and queens nursing mothers 



128 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



Much important ground common to all Evangelical Sects. 

to the church. Is this enthusiasm ? Then I glory 
in it. I would rather be an enthusiast on such a 
theme, and in such a cause, than to have the repu- 
tation of being the most prudent, calculating man 
that breathes. 

The chief apprehension on this subject, unless I 
err in my opinion, is that sectarian prejudices will 
be excited, and an undue influence exerted in fa- 
vour of the sect to which the master might happen 
to belong. In one word, proselytism is the bug- 
bear. But is there not much and most important 
ground common to all evangelical denominations 
of Christians 1 Do they not all receive and insist 
upon the great essential principles of religion, such 
as the divine authority and truth of the Holy 
Scriptures, the being and perfections of God, his mo- 
ral government of the world, the immortality of the 
soul, the fall and redemption of man, his account- 
ability, the obligations of a pure morality, and the 
doctrine of a future judgment, and of endless re- 
wards and punishments'? And cannot these truths 
so sublime in themselves, so well fitted to expand 
and exalt the nnind, and of infinite moment to 
every human being, be taught, to the entire exclu- 
sion, if need be, of everything of a sectarian cha- 
racter ? Surely, it would be better to omit, by com- 
mon consent, all reference to particular creeds and 
dogmas, than to thrust out entirely from a course 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 129 

Method adopted by Prussia to allay Prejudice and promote Harmony. 

of popular instruction, the elucidation and inculca- 
tion of truths on every account the naost important 
to be known. 

But, Gentlemen, is it necessary to do even this? 
On this question I would not express a positive opi- 
nion, and yet I am incHned to think that there is 
wisdom enough in the country to devise some plan 
by which even such a necessity might be obviated. 
This has actually been done in some countries, and 
in none with more complete success than in Prus- 
sia. The inhabitants of that kingdom, as you well 
know, are composed of extremely heterogeneous 
materials, and the diversity of religious belief cor- 
responds to their dissimilarity in other respects. 
Rather more than half of them are Protestants, 
several millions Catholics, and a very respectable 
proportion of the Jewish faith. Yet the Govern- 
ment requires that religion be taught in all the 
schools, but without the slightest interference with 
the freedom of religious opinion. Permit me to 
call your attention to the provisions of the Prussian 
law on this subject. 

" The difference of religion," says the law, " is 
not to be an obstacle in the formation of a school 
society [district] ; but in forming such a society 
you must have regard to the numerical proportion 
of the inhabitants of each faith ; and, as far as it 
can possibly be done, you shall conjoin with the 



130 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Extract from the Prussian Law. Success of the Plan. 

principal master professing the religion of the ma- 
jority, a second master of the faith of the minority." 

The law farther says : — " The difference of reli- 
gion in Christian schools necessarily produces dif- 
ferences in religious instruction. That instruction 
should be always appropriate to the doctrines and 
spirit of the creed for which the schools shall 
be ordained. But as in every school of a Christian 
state, the dominant spirit, and the one common to 
all sects, is a pious and deep veneration for God ; 
so every school may be allowed to receive child- 
ren of every Christian sect. The masters shall 
watch with the greatest care that no constraint 
and no proselytism be exercised. Private and 
especial masters, of whatever sect the pupil belongs 
to, shall be charged with his religious education. 
If, indeed, there be some places where it is impos- 
sible for the School Committee to procure an espe- 
cial instructer for every sect; then, parents, if 
they are unwilling that their children shall adopt 
the prevailing creed of the school, are entreated 
themselves to undertake the task of affording 
them. lessons in their own persuasion." 

Such is the Catholic spirit which pervades the 
Prussian system in respect to religious education; 
and such the admirable plan by which it allays 
sectarian prejudices, harmonizes conflicting ele- 
ments, and on the most momentous of subjects. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 131 

Opinions of the Wise and Good. Mr. Simpson. 

imparts instruction to all without giving offence 
to any. This arrangement has been found in 
practice to answer the end for which it was de- 
vised; it gives satisfaction to all the different 
sects ; and it is productive of the happiest effects 
on the national character and manners. And that 
which Prussia thus wisely and, I will add, humane- 
ly performs, cannot the states of this union accom- 
plish ? To contend that they cannot, would be to 
acknowledge an inferiority in prudential resources, 
which, I, for one, am not yet prepared to grant. 

What, Sirs, are the opinions of the wise and 
good on this point, — especially those who have de- 
voted most time and thought to it? I do not af- 
firm that there is entire unanimity among them, 
but certainly, as far as my knowledge extends, 
the weight of authority is decidedly in favour of 
the question which I am now advocating. 

Mr. Simpson, an original, able, and in many 
respects, judicious Scotch writer, on education, 
speaking of the small effect produced by pulpit in- 
structions in Great Britain, and of the want of 
early, thorough, and systematic religious training, 
as the cause of it, holds the following language : — 
" What is the cause of so small a harvest from so 
immense a cultivation ? Why does not the seed 
so plentifully sown fructify and produce? There 
is but one answer to this question, we are not a 



132 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Bulwer recommends the Introduction of Religious Instruction in Schools. 

MORALLY EDUCATED PEOPLE. Thoro Is a barren- 
ness among us where genuine Christianity refuses 
to take foot ; there is worse ; there are the thorns 
of an inherent selfishness which choke it ; tares 
preoccupy the whole field, and the husbandmen sow 
in vain." Again : near the end of the book from 
which I quote, he has these explicit words, — " No 
one can have read this treatise without observing 
that RELIGIOUS EDUCATION is strenuously advocated 
in it." 

Bulwer, the novelist, insists, with much force of 
argument and vigour of language, on the indispen- 
sable necessity of religion as the foundation of a 
wise and efficient system of national education. 
His opinion is thus expressed in brief: — " Let us 
accomplish our great task of common instruction, 
not by banishing all religion, but by 'procuring for 
every pupil instruction in his own. And in this 
large and catholic harmony of toleration, I do be- 
lieve the great proportion of our divines, and of 
our dissenters might, by a prudent government, be 
induced cheerfully to concur. For both are per- 
suaded of the necessity of education, both are 
willing to sacrifice a few minor considerations 
to a common end, and, under the wide canopy of 
Christian faith, to secure, each to each, the main- 
tenance of individual doctrines. I propose, then, 
that the state shall establish universal education ; 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 133 

Cousin's Opinion. Religion the best base of Popular Instruction, 

/ propose that it shall be founded on, and combined 
with, religious instruction; and I remove, by the sug- 
gestion I have made, the apprehension of contend- 
ing sects." 

Victor Cousin, the profoundest of the living 
philosophers of France, and one of her most ac- 
complished statesmen, the author of the celebrated 
Report on Prussian Education, a man once perse- 
cuted by the priesthood, — is most decided in his 
opinion on this question : — " The popular schools 
of a nation," he says, in the work just alluded to, 
'* ought to be penetrated with the religious spirit 
of that nation. Is Christianity, or is it not, the re- 
ligion of the people of France ? We must allow 
that it is. Then, I ask, shall we respect the reli- 
gion of the people, or shall we destroy it ? If we 
undertake the destruction of Christianity, then, I 
own, we must take care not to teach it. But if 
we do not profess to ourselves that end, we must 
teach our children the faith which has civilised 
their parents, and the liberal spirit of which has 
prepared and sustains our great modern institu- 
tions. Religion, in my eyes, is the best base of 
popular instruction. I know a little of Europe; 
nowhere have I seen good schools for the people 
where the Christian charity was not. In human 
societies there are some things for the accomplish- 
ment of which religion is necessary. Were you 

12 



134 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Mr. Dick. His Works full of Passages on this Subject. 

to lavish the treasures of the state, to tax parish 
and district, still you could not dispense with 
Christian charity ; or with that spirit of humble- 
ness and self-restraint, of courageous resignation 
and nnodest dignity, which Christianity, well under- 
stood and ivell-taiight, can alone give to the instruc- 
tion of the poor. It would be necessary to call 
religion to our aid, were it only a matter of 
finance." 

From the works of Mr. Dick, one of the most 
useful and popular writers of the present age, it 
would not be difficult to cull a small volume of 
extracts having a pointed reference to this subject, 
and all in full harmony with the views here advo- 
cated. One brief passage, however, is all that I 
can make room for : " In the preceding sketches," 
he remarks, " I have taken for granted, that, during 
the whole process of education, the attention of 
the young should be directed to the manifestations 
of the Divine attributes — the fundamental princi- 
ples of Christianity, the rules of moral action, and 
the eternal world to which they are destined. 
These are subjects which should never be lost 
sight of for a single day, and which should be in- 
terwoven with every department of literary and 
scientific instruction. In a particular manner it 
should be deeply impressed on the minds of the 
young, that the instructions which they receive, and 
the studies in which they now engage, are intended, 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 135 



Mr, Wyse. Intellectual Education without Religion, an Evil. 



not merely to qualify themfoi^ the business of the 
present life, hut likewise to ^prepare them for the fe- 
licities and the employments of the life to come. 
This is one of the ends of education which has 
been glaringly overlooked in most of our initiatory 
schools." 

Mr. Wyse, a leading member of the British Par- 
liament, in a very able work on the Necessity of a 
National System of Education, published last year 
in London, speaks thus explicitly and forcibly on 
this subject: — 

" The education which confines to the desk or 
chapel is partial ; it is only a chapter in the system. 
It is pernicious — it is a portion only of the blessing. 
If such be the result of separating physical and in- 
tellectual education, how much more so of divid- 
ing intellectual and moral ! It is laboriously pro- 
viding for the community dangers and crimes. It 
intrusts power, with the perfect certainty of its 
being abused. It brings into the very heart of our 
social existence the two hostile principles of Mani- 
cheism ; it sets up the glory and beauty of civilisa- 
tion, to be dashed to pieces by the * evil spirit,' to 
whom it gives authority over it. It disciplines the 
bad passions of our nature against the good, mak- 
ing men wicked by rule — rendering vice system — 
intrusting to the clever head the strong hand, and 
setting both loose by the impulse of the bad heart 



136 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Makes Men wicked by Rule. Takes from Education its very Essence. 

below. The omission of Physical Education ren- 
ders the other two ineffective or precarious ; but 
the neglect of Moral Education converts physical 
and intellectual into positive evils. The pestilence 
of a high-taught, but corrupt mind, ' blowing where 
it listeth' scathes and sears the souls of men — it is 
felt for miles and years almost interminable. By 
the press (the steam of the intellectual world) it 
touches distant ages and other hemispheres. It 
corrupts the species in mass. It is not only in the 
actual generation, but in the rickety offspring 
which follow late and long, that its deep-eating 
poison is strongly detected. Late ages wonder at 
the waste of great means, at the perversion of 
high opportunities, and noble powers, at the dere- 
liction of solemn duties, which every where cha- 
racterise these strong, but evil beings. Call them 
conquerors — call them philosophers — call them 
patriots — put on what golden seeming you may — 
when the mask falls off, as it always does, in due 
season, we see behind it the worst combination 
which can disgust or afflict humanity. Such men- 
deliverers and enlighteners (as their sycophants 
hail them) — ^^such men are the true master- workers 
of the vices and calamities of their age and coun- 
try. But who made them ? They who taught 
them. Education left out its very essence. It 
gave them knowledge, but it left them immorality. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 137 

Dr. Barrow. Obligation of Schoolmasters to teach Religion. 

" When I speak of Moral Education, I imply 
religion ; and when I speak of religion, I speak of 
Christianity. It is morality, it is conscience, j)ar 
excellence. Even in the most worldly sense, it 
could easily be shown, that no other morality so 
truly binds, no other education so effectually se- 
cures even the coarse and material interests of 
society. The economist himself would find his 
gain in such a system. Even if it did not exist, 
he should invent it. It works his most sanguine 
speculations of good, into far surer and more rapid 
conclusions, than any system he could attempt to 
set up in its place. No system of philosophy has 
better consulted the mechanism of society, or join- 
ed it together with a closer adaptation of all its 
parts, than Christianity." 

Dr. Barrow, for many years a distinguished 
teacher in London, an eminent scholar, a classical 
and elegant writer, a sober-minded educationist, 
and a man than whom none has written better on 
the general subject of education, says : — " The 
obligation of a schoolmaster to give religious in- 
struction to his pupils may, I think, be unanswera- 
bly proved ; whether Christianity be, what we are 
taught to believe it, the dictate of divine revela- 
tion ; or, w^hat modern philosophy affects to deem 
it, the mere expedient of human policy." 

This obligation he then proceeds to prove, setting 



138 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Four Arguments to prove this Obligation. 

forth the argument in support of it, with much 
ability, under four heads, viz. the influence of 
Christianity in checking the acknowledged vicious 
propensities of human nature, and the actual dis- 
orders thence resulting in society ; its necessity 
to the purity of the political atmosphere, and the 
stability of political institutions ; its connexion 
with personal virtue and usefulness; and finally, 
its indispensable necessity to the attainment of 
everlasting happiness. The truth and excellency 
of Christianity, supported by the commands of its 
Author, are thus shown to constitute the obligation 
on the part of instructors to teach it to those en- 
trusted to their care; and one circumstance, which 
peculiarly brings home this obligation to the school- 
master, is, as Dr. Barrow truly remarks, that in- 
struction on this subject, above all others, must be 
early begun and constantly continued. In this 
point, as in almost every other, man is the crea- 
ture as much of custom as of conviction ; and it is 
generally confessed, that if sentiments of religion 
are not impressed upon the mind in infancy or in 
early youth, they will seldom be impressed with 
sufficient force and effect. The heart will soon 
be occupied with other thoughts, and the life form- 
ed to different habits; it will not, without reluc- 
tance, receive such novel opinions, as tend to im- 
pose additional restraints upon its appetites and 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 139 

Assuming the Authenticity of the Bible, the Question decided at once. 

propensities. A vacant mind may, indeed, at any 
time, be seized with the terrors of superstition, or 
the reveries of enthusiasm ; but in youth only can 
be taught such a steady and rational system of 
faith, as shall form the principle of duty, and the 
comfort of affliction, through all the vicissitudes 
of life. 

" Assuming Christianity to be," observes Dr. 
Barrow in the course of his Essay on Religious 
Instruction, " what we are taught to believe it, a 
revelation from heaven, the question is at once 
and for ever decided. Nor have I supposed the 
possibility of its being the mere expedient of hu- 
man policy, as if I thought its divine origin could 
rationally be doubted ; but that I might discuss 
the point before me on the ground most favourable 
to those who differ from me in opinion. To the 
utmost liberality of sentiment, I hope I have con- 
ceded enough; to the modern affectation of it, 
certainly too much. I shall no longer, therefore, 
even in argument, compromise the interests of 
truth and the dignity of divine revelation. The 
doctrines of our Scriptures I shall consider as sa- 
cred and inestimable truths ; before which sophis- 
try should be silent, and presumption abashed ; and 
the precepts I shall not only receive with reverence, 
as the laws of God ; but contend for them with 
zeal, as the bulwark of the happiness of man. 



140 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



Addison's Opinion. Milton's Opinion. 



For my own part, says Addison, I think the being 
of a God as so little to be doubted, that it is almost 
the only truth we are sure of; and to this I will 
venture to add, for it is little more than the fair 
and natural inference, that the doctrines and duties 
of religion are almost the only study, which we 
are not at liberty to cultivate or to neglect. They 
constitute the only science, which is equally and 
indispensably necessary to men of every rank, 
every age, and every profession. Admit the au- 
thenticity of the Bible, and the principal object of 
education becomes at once as obvious, as it is im- 
portant ; to regulate the sentiments, and form the 
habits of beings, degenerate, indeed, and corrupt 
by their own fault; but made by their Creator 
rational in their faculties, and responsible for their 
conduct. If it be the business of education to pre- 
pare us for our situation in life, and the business of 
life to prepare us for the happiness of eternity; 
then do we perceive a system of perfect order and 
beauty in itself; and equally consistent with what 
we observe in the world, and with the wisdom and 
goodness of its Almighty Author. Science imme- 
diately finds its proper level, and its due estima- 
tion." 

The great Milton, a name that cannot be exalted 
by praise from any quarter at this late day, speaks, 
in his Treatise on Education, of the principles of 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 141 

Hon. Samuel L. Southard's Defence of the Bible. 

the young in schools "requiring a special rein- 
forcement of constant and sound indoctrinating, 
to set them right and firm, instructing them more 
amply in the knowledge of virtue, and hatred of 
vice ;" and also of " reducing moral instructions, 
derived from other sources than the Scriptures, 
in their nightward studies, vvherev^^ith they close 
the day's vi^ork, under the determinate sentence of 
David or Solomon, or the evangelists and apos- 
tolic Scriptures." And in another place he de- 
clares explicitly : "The end of learning is to 

REPAIR THE RUINS OF OUR FIRST PARENTS, BY RE- 
QUIRING TO KNOW God aright, and out of that 

KNOWLEDGE TO LOVE HIM AND TO IMITATE HIM."* 



* One of our own most eminent citizens, the Hon. Samuel L, 
Southard, in an Address recently delivered before the Literary 
Societies of the College of New Jersey, — an Address marked 
throughout by eloquence of style, profound research, and loftiness 
of sentiment, — holds the following language at pp. 17 and 18 : — 

" Observe, again, two comparatively unlettered men, laborious 
in their employments, and altogether without the adornments of 
literature. If one diligently reads the Bible, and becomes fami- 
liar with its language and expressions, and the other never opens 
it, you may tell the fact, by the superiority of the former, in his 
ordinary manner of conversation, even upon topics unconnected 
with the doctrines of the Book. The same fact is illustrated by 
two schools, in one of which it is sedulously taught, and in the 
other, is never read. You cannot converse with the scholars, 
without remarking the contrast." 



142 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Influence of the Bible in promoting Virtue and checking Vice. 

It would be easy to multiply quotations from 
writers of inferior note ; but let these suffice. Here 
I am willing to rest both the main question, and the 
question of authority. 



And again at pp. 32 and 33 ; — 

" A rigorous investigation of the authenticity and principles 
of this book, will discipline your powers — impart to you generous 
and lofty sentiments — high and controlling sense of duty — force 
of character to meet responsibilities, and firmness to encounter 
trials. And what affection or feeling of the heart is there, which 
will not find employment in the study ? Do you seek an expla- 
nation of the nature, or illustration of any pure feeling — of filial 
duty and affection — of conjugal or parental love — of sympathy 
and kindness — of strong enduring friendship — of attachment to 
country and her institutions — of any one emotion which is worthy 
of you as social and immortal beings — or of any corrupt and de- 
basing practice which reason forbids you to indulge ? It will be 
found there." 

I did not feel at liberty in this connexion, to introduce the 
above quotations into the text, because the writer was not advo- 
cating the study of the Bible in common schools, and therefore 
to quote him as authority on this point would have been a mani- 
fest perversion of his language. Nevertheless, I cannot doubt, 
that one who has written so ably and strenuously in favour of 
the study of the Holy Scriptures in colleges, would be equally 
averse to their exclusion from the popular schools ; especially, as 
one of the illustrations with which he enforces his views, is taken 
from the influence of the Bible in schools. At all events, what is 
here extracted from the learned Senator's Address, is strictly 
pertinent to the argument, and as such, I adopt it as my own, 
with due acknowledgments. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 143 

Apprehension as to the Effect of Education on Labouring Classes. 

It was said in a former part of these Hints, that 
the only objection that could be urged against the 
most thorough national education, was its expen- 
siveness. I recall in part that expression. It is 
sometimes urged, even in this country, that such 
an education as is here contended for, would tend 
to raise the labouring classes above their sphere, 
make them dissatisfied with their station, and give 
them a distaste for manual employments. This ob- 
jection maybe as properly considered here as any 
where. 

Now in order to furnish a reasonable ground 
for such an apprehension, one or both, of two as- 
sumptions must be shown to be true ; either there 
must be some disgrace in manual labour, or it must 
tend to some degree of unhappiness, or both these 
qualities must attach to it. Let no man tell me 
that there is any real disgrace in labour, when 
I read in one of the Epistles to the Thessalonians 
such an injunction as the following, — " Study to 
be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work 
loith your own hands, as we command you ; that 
ye may walk honestly toward them that are with- 
out, and that ye may have lack of nothing ;" when 
I hear Paul declaring, in the same epistle, this 
fact, — " For ye remember, brethren, our labour 
and travail: for labouring night and day, because 
we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we 



144 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

This objection considered and answered. 

preached unto you the gospel of God ;" when I 
know that David was the feeder of his father's 
flocks ; when the Scriptures every where inculcate 
industry as one of the first of moral duties; and 
above all, when it is more than probable that 
our blessed Saviour himself worked for many 
years at the trade of a carpenter, thus teaching 
us that real dignity and worth do not depend on 
any external circumstances, but consist in the quali- 
ties of the mind and heart. 

And what shall we say of the latter assumption '? 
Does labour tend to unhappiness ? In none, cer- 
tainly, but the idle and the vicious. To the honest 
and industrious labouring man there cannot be a 
greater punishment than deprivation of employ- 
ment. 

Do those persons who urge this objection con- 
sider that one main design of all good education 
is to teach men their duty, with the reasons of it 1 
And who ever heard that teaching men their duty, 
especially if the instruction was imparted in a 
proper manner, was calculated to give them a dis- 
inclination to perform it? " The admirable mecha- 
nism of society, together with that subordination 
of ranks which is essential to its subsistence, is surely 
not an elaborate imposition, which the exercise of 
reason would detect and expose. The objection 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 145 

Another Objection to general Education. Founded in Selfishness. 

we have stated, implies a reflection on the social 
order, equally impolitic, invidious, and unjust." 

Finally, in reply to this objection : In the schools 
that I w^ould propose to establish, as you have 
already seen, manual and intellectual instruction 
should go hand in hand ; the very first lesson, and 
the one continually inculcated, should be a lesson 
of practical independence ; and the pupils should 
be taught and retaught, on all occasions, that no- 
thing is really disgraceful but idleness and crime, 
and that the true dignity of man consists in honest 
labour for honourable purposes. 

There is another objection made by some men 
against contributing any thing, in the shape of 
taxes or otherwise, towards the education of the 
mass of children in the community. It is this: 
viz. that they educate their own children them- 
selves, and others ought to do the same by theirs. 
This objection is founded in selfishness, and an 
argument to refute it, based upon higher princi- 
ples, though easily constructed, would be thrown 
away upon such people. Let us, therefore, meet 
them on their own ground, and see whether the 
selfish principle itself, properly understood, will not 
lead them to a different conclusion. The author 
imagines himself in the company of one of these 
objectors, and labouring to convince him of his 
error. 

13 



146 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Imaginary Dialogue between the Author and the Objector. 

Author. — Well, my friend, I am anxious that 
our common schools should be established upon a 
better basis than they are at present, and I am 
writing a book to that end. I maintain that all 
the children in the community ought to be well 
educated, and that the expense of their education 
should be defrayed by the whole community, each 
man paying in proportion to his property. 

Objector. — My dear sir, that would be neither 
more nor less than this, — that the rich should edu- 
cate the poor. 

AuT. — Exactly so. 

Obj. — Monstrous ! It would be rank injustice. 
Can you have the face to promulgate such a doc- 
trine in a free country ? It smells of despotism ; 
it has no communion with the spirit of true repub- 
licanism. No, no, let every man educate his own 
children, in his own way ; that's my doctrine, and 
it's my practice too. I employ a man in my own 
house to teach my children ; I pay him punc- 
tually every quarter ; and when that's done, my 
conscience is quite easy : I feel that I have done 
my part towards the education of society. 

AuT. — This is truly an easy way of performing 
duty, and of having a quiet conscience; but I 
yield the point of duty, and acknowledge, for the 
time being, the soundness of your positions. But, 
my friend, do you love your own children ? 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 147 

Dialogue continued. 

Obj. — That's a strange question, truly. Do you 
take me for a nnonster '? 

AuT. — No, I do not ; I know too well the ten- 
derness and strength of your parental feelings. 
You say you have your children instructed at 
home. You can't seclude them entirely from the 
company of other children? 

Obj. — No ; and it grieves me to the heart. They 
learn so much that is bad from them. 

AuT. — How much would you give to have these 
influences purified, so that they should cease to be 
injurious, or at least become far less so than they 
are at present? 

Obj. — How much? No price would be too 
great. I would willingly pay a hundred dollars 
a year to secure so great an advantage for my 
children. 

AuT. — In admitting so much, you yield the 
whole argument. If you, and such as you, would 
contribute but a modicum of the sum you have 
named, such schools might be universally esta- 
blished as w^ould purify the moral atmosphere of 
society, and free the influences to which your 
children are subjected from a great portion of 
their present contaminating virus. Besides, are 
you quite sure there would not be true economy 
in this ? Perhaps the course here recommended 
would so far raise the common school above its 



148 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



Selfishness itself would lead to Liberality in this Matter. 

present level, in point of intellectual advantage 
and moral influence, that you would be willing to 
entrust to it the education of your own children. 
In that case there would be a positive pecuniary 
gain to yourself in your contributions for the good 
of others. 

This, I am persuaded, is sound reasoning, though 
it appeals to the selfish principle, and depends upon 
it for all its force. It is the best argument for those 
to whom it is addressed, though one of a more ele- 
vated character would satisfy the philosopher and 
the statesman. 



149 



CHAPTER III. 

QUALIFICATION OF TEACHERS. 

Importance of this point — Our present Deficiency in well qualified 
Instructors — Classes of Men who chiefly engage in this busi- 
ness — Motives which actuate them — Their ignorance — Inade- 
quate Views of Parents — Anecdotes illustrative of this — A 
Teacher in the Ban de la Roche — Empirical Methods of In- 
struction — Inefficiency in Government^ Its Cause — School- 
Teaching for the most part a Temporary Business — Some 
Exceptions to the above Remarks — Bad eflfects of the present 
State of Things on Teachers and Pupils — Our general Intel- 
ligence as a Nation admitted — Not attributable to our Popular 
Schools — Its true Causes pointed out — Glorions Results 
might be looked for from the Union of these Causes and 
a well organized System of Popular Education — Conditions of 
such a System — Provision for the Education of Teachers a 
most important Condition — Practical Error of Parents in this 
Matter — Deplorable Effect of it — Teaching must be made a 
Profession, and become respectable — No office more truly 
honourable than that of an Instructor — Its present degradation 
— Must be raised to its proper Rank — This can be effected only 
by the Establishment of Teacher's Seminaries — Institutions 
of this Kind the intellectual Want of the Age — Prussia al- 
ready supplied with them — Reference to some other Countries 
— Origin and History of these Institutions — Theirgreat^Import- 
ance— They are the Life-BIood of an efficient System of Popu- 
lar Education — Their Necessity insisted on by all Writers on 
both sides of the Atlantic— Extract from the Edinburgh Re- 
view on this Subject — The question examined whether these 
Seminaries should be connected with other Institutions, or 
exist under a separate Organization — Three Reasons for prefer- 
ring the latter Plan — Its effect would be better, first, on the 

13* 



150 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Who are our Teachers? Motives for engaging in Teaching. 

character of the Teacher ; secondly, on their Respectability ; 
thirdly, on their Education — General Principles of Organiza- 
tion — Two leading Results to be aimed at — good Teachers 
and some security that they will exercise their Profession in 
the State where educated — Details more difficult — The lights of 
Experience w^anting among us — Must look to Prussia for 
Model Schools — Conduct of Men in Parallel Cases in the ordi- 
nary Business of Life — Propriety and Utility of sending 
Agents to examine and report upon the Prussian Schools. 

The qualification of teachers is a point which 
requires careful consideration in the organization 
of any general system of popular education. In 
this respect our schools generally will, I fear, be 
found to be even more deficient than in regard to 
their course of studies. 

Who and what are our teachers at present 1 It 
is with pain and sorrow that I speak disparagingly 
of any class of my fellow citizens, especially that 
with which my own relations are nearest, and my 
sympathies most lively ; but the paramount claims 
of truth and society must be permitted to outweigh 
all personal considerations. 

What motives are now most influential in prompt- 
ing men to follow the business of common school- 
teaching? Some engage in this employment 
during the winter months because they can make 
higher wages by it than by farming or mechanical 
labour; some follow the profession of teaching 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 151 

Their great Ignorance. Anecdote illustraling it. 

because they are too feeble to endure the more 
hardy and often more coveted toils of active out- 
door employment; others again, because they have 
failed of success in in all other pursuits ; others for 
the more honourable purpose of aiding themselves 
in obtaining a liberal education ; and the multitude, 
at least in some states, are made up of thriftless 
adventurers of every grade, too lazy to work, too 
poor to live without it, and much more fit to be 
peddling wooden nutmegs, or making hickory 
hams, than to undertake the task of training the 
youth of a nation to the knowledge and love of 
their duties as citizens and men. 

Few of these persons possess any thing in the 
shape of literary attainments beyond the bald and 
meagre knowledge which they teach, and the 
many are much more fit to go to school than to 
undertake the labour of teaching others. Parents 
themselves, it is much to be feared, entertain gene- 
rally very inadequate notions of the importance 
of having well qualified teachers for their children, 
and often select them from very unworthy motives, 
— such as relationship, friendship, cheapness, and 
sometimes even because they can make them- 
selves useful in other things than their appropriate 
business. I have heard, gentlemen, of a district 
in our own state, where the loss of a teacher was 
bitterly deplored for — what think you? Because 



152 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Examination of a Teacher in Connecticut. Amusing Answer. 

their children would lose his valuable services ? 
No such thing ; but because he was the best judge 
of horses, and the best horse doctor in the district ! 
I saw, a few years ago, in the Christian Observer 
of Connecticut, an account, deemed authentic by 
the Editor,* of an examination of a teacher by a 
school committee in one of the districts of that 
state. One of the questions put to the candidate 
for employment, was, '• Where is the District of 
Columbia ?" His first reply was, " In Vermont." 
He was given to understand that that was not ex- 
actly its locality. He then shifted it to other quar- 
ters, and, after having made it perambulate various 
parts of the Union, the examiners and the examinee 
settled down in the learned conclusion that the 
District of Columbia was partly in Virginia and 
partly in Delaware. And there ended "the strife of 
tongues ;" except as it may have been displayed 
in the intercourse of the master with his pupils, as 
it is almost needless to add, the applicant passed 
the ordeal successfully, and was admitted to em- 
ployment. 

Mr. Taylor, in his District school, declares that it 



* The Rev. H. Hooker, a gentleman not likely to believe any 
thing on insufficient grounds. The Observer declares that in 
some townships in that state, there is not a man, except the mi- 
nister, competent to examine a teacher. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION, 153 

A Teacher in the Ban de la Roche. Empirical Methods of Instruction. 

is nouncommonthing for the examining committees 
in New York to allow applicants to pass, because 
they happen to be third or fourth cousins to some 
one of their own honourable body. 

Such facts as these remind one strongly of what 
is related of one of the schoolmasters in the Ban 
de la Roche, when Mr. Stouber first went there. 
He had been employed in that capacity for the 
excellent reason that he had become too old and 
infirm to take care of the pigs. Being thus enfee- 
bled and incapacitated, he had been appointed, as 
to a business next in importance, to take care of 
the children. On being interrogated as to what 
he taught them, he replied, with perfect naivete, 
" Nothing." And to the question why he taught 
them nothing, he answered, with equal simpHcity, 
" Because I know nothing myself." 

But not only is the stock of knowledge of our 
common school-masters extremely limited; they 
labour under the further disadvantage of being 
ignorant of the best modes of imparting to their 
pupils even the modicum they possess themselves. 
I was recently informed by the Superintendent of 
Common Schools in Pennsylvania,* that a teacher 



* Mr. Burrows, one of the most able, judicious, and useful 
friends of popular education in the country. 



154 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



A Schoolmaster in Pennsylvania. His Objection to Classification. 



in that state told him that he had heard much of 
the advantages of classification in schools, but that, 
having tried it himself, he had found it was all 
folly, and that he vi^as now satisfied that the only 
useful method of instruction was to hear the pupils 
recite their exercises one by one. Would you 
know the cause of so signal a failure of one of the 
simplest methods of economizing the labour of a 
teacher, and multiplying the benefits of instruction? 
Behold this gentleman's plan of operations 1 He 
divided his scholars oflf into classes, gave each an 
invariable position in the class, always commenced 
the recitation at the same end, and required as 
nearly as possible an equal proportion of the lesson 
to be recited by each member. Now, sirs, I ask 
you whether it requires the gift of second sight to 
perceive what this master's objection to classing 
his pupils was 1 Each, for the most part, learned 
only the portion that he supposed would come to 
him in the recitation. The objection, therefore, 
was, that classification had a bad effect on both 
the morals and the knowledge of the pupils, tempt- 
ing them at the same time to use deceit and to 
neglect their studies. And this is but a specimen 
of the thousand and one errors in the modes of 
instruction, assuming as many different shapes and 
hues, which have arisen out of the ignorance and 
inexperience of teachers ; — errors, which have de- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 155 



Defective Government. Ignorance of Human Nature. 

graded the profession of teaching and perverted 
its ends, which have tortured and dv^arfed the in- 
tellects of learners, and contributed more perhaps 
than any other cause to that vt^ide-spread indiffer- 
ence which is now the principle obstacle in the 
way of the adoption of improved systems of gene- 
ral education. 

What shall we say of the ability and success of 
our common school instructors in that important 
branch of their duties, comprehended in the term 
GOVERNMENT ? Alas ! it would be easy to sketch 
here such a picture of passion, menace, and brute 
force on the one side, of rudeness, insubordination, 
and open resistance on the other, and of coarse 
and angry altercation on both, as would pain every 
human heart, much more those who are capable 
of appreciating not only the immediate effects of 
such a state of things on the happiness of the 
parties, but all those remote influences it cannot 
fail to exert on the character and conduct of those 
young beings, who are, and are to be, the greatest 
sufferers. How should it be otherwise 1 In order 
to the maintenance of rational government in a 
school, in order that the influence of discipline 
may be beneficial instead of hurtful, it is an indis- 
pensable condition that the master be able, at least 
in some good degree, to control the public opinion 
of his pupils. This is in fact the great instrument 



156 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

School-keeping a temporary Business. Exceptions to foregoing Remarks. 

of good and successful school government. It is, 
however, an instrument beyond the power of those 
to use, who have no knowledge of the principles 
of human nature, and especially of those peculiar 
manifestations of it displayed in childhood. It is 
this almost total ignorance of human nature which, 
by the practical errors of which it is the source, 
is the principal cause of the prevalent failure in 
government of those who now have the manage- 
ment of our common schools. 

The aggravated evils of the condition of things 
above described, are yet further increased by the 
circumstance, that most even of the teachers we 
now have, poor as they are, regard their employ- 
ment as merely temporary, have an extreme dis- 
reUsh for it, and only await a favourable opportu- 
nity to quit the odious task, and engage in pursuits 
more congenial with their inclinations. 

Let me, however, act upon the principle, as con- 
sonant to reason as it is to Scripture, of " rendering 
unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's." I would 
not wilUngly speak unjustly of any, and least of all 
of a class of men whose reward is so dispropor- 
tionate to their toils, and who occupy a station in 
society with which, under existing circumstances, 
so much is connected that is disagreeable. I there- 
fore most gladly admit that there are honourable 
exceptions to the general rule. Even now teach- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 157 

Some good Teachers. General bad Effects of the System. 

ers are occasionally to be met with, who would 
be an honour to the profession under a system the 
best organized and the most comprehensive. But 
this does not invalidate the general fact of their 
want of suitable qualifications ; it still remains true 
that the primary schoolmasters of this country — 
certainly of our own state — are, as a body, unfit 
for the station they fill, and unworthy of being 
entrusted with so momentous a charge as the in- 
tellectual and moral training of a nation's youth, 
the bud and promise of her future strength. 

That there may be, and are, some good schools 
under such a system, has been fully admitted; but 
the evils of the system are incalculable. Inexpe- 
rience, disgust, a morbid anxiety for and feverish 
anticipation of release from what is regarded as a 
loathsome and onerous thraldom, want of interest 
in the pupil's progress, and an entire absence of 
professional pride, — these are its legitimate and ne- 
cessarv fruits, so far as instructers are concerned. 
Its effects on the moral character and intellectual 
developement of our youth, and of course on their 
happiness and usefulness, cannot but be disastrous 
and deplorable in the extreme. 

But are we not, it may be asked, in the main, 
an intelligent, shrewd, well-informed people? I 
freely, nay, exultingly, admit that we are ; but I 
deny that it is to our common schools that we are 

14 



158 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



Our Intelligence as a Nation. Its Causes. 



chiefly indebted for this character. As a nation, 
we are educated more by contact with each other, 
by business, by newspapers, magazines, and circu- 
lating libraries, by public meetings and conven- 
tions, by lyceums, by speeches in congress, in the 
state legislatures, and at political gatherings, and 
in various other ways, than by direct instructions 
imparted in the school room. And if so much 
general intelligence, as now unquestionably cha- 
racterises us as a people, is the result of the pre- 
sent state of things, what might we not anticipate, 
if to all these influences were superadded the ad- 
vantages of a well organised and comprehensive 
system of primary education? Results, glorious 
in themselves, and most auspicious to our pros- 
pects as a nation, might be looked for from such 
a union. 

I say, A WELL ORGANIZED SYSTEM. But what 

are the conditions of such a system ? Allow me 
to summon Mr. Cousin to my aid in answering 
this question. " The best plans of instruction," he 
says, " cannot be executed but by good teachers ; 
and the state has done nothing for popular educa- 
tion, if it does not watch that those who devote 
themselves to teaching be well prepared; then 
suitably placed, encouraged, and guided in the 
duty of continued self-improvement; and lastly 
rewarded and promoted in proportion to their 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 159 

Conditions of a well organised System. Philosophy of good Schools. 

advancement, and punished according to their 
faults." 

Here is the whole philosophy of good schools 
and sound education reduced within the connpass 
of a nutshell. What are their elements ? First, 
good plans of instruction ; then, good teachers ; 
next, provision by the state for preparing teachers 
for their work ; fourthly, suitable encouragement 
and guidance in the duty of continued self-improve- 
ment; and finally, promotions and rewards for 
the meritorious, and punishments and disgraces 
for the unworthy. And these are all essential ele- 
ments of a well organised system. Take away 
any one of them, and you destroy the proportions 
of the whole structure, and materially diminish 
both its strength and beauty; — take away the third 
— provision for the education of teachers — and 
you remove the corner stone of the whole system, 
and leave it comparatively powerless for any use- 
ful purpose. No general plan of popular education 
can be at all entitled to the epithet well-organ- 
ised, which does not provide for the training of 
masters. This, in my opinion, is the first duty of 
a state with respect to schools ; and without it, all 
other legislation in reference to this matter, what- 
,ever partial advantages it may result in, must stop 
short of the full benefits at which it ought to aim, 
and which it might accomplish. 



160 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Practical Error on this subject. Its fatal Effects. 

There has been a radical error in the practice^ 
if not in the opinions, of parents on this subject. 
They have acted as if they thought that he who 
was unfit for any thing else would make a very 
tolerable teacher for their children. No opinion 
could be more preposterous, no course of action 
more short-sighted. It is not thus that men think 
and act on other subjects. A mechanic must 
serve an apprenticeship of three, four, or five years, 
before he is allowed to undertake the formation of 
an elegant piece of furniture, or a complicated 
machine, when nothing can result from failure but 
the loss of the rude material and the workman's 
time. But we have been in the habit of committing 
the infant mind, that most delicate and complex 
piece of God's workmanship, to men who have 
never studied even the first principles of its struc- 
ture ; and that too at a time when its parts are 
most easily disarranged, and when such disar- 
rangement produces the most fatal and lasting 
efl^ects. 

While such views thus practically prevail, it is 
in vain to look for the fruits of a wise system of 
elementary instruction. There is no conviction 
deeper or stronger in my mind than this, — that 
but httle can be effected in this country towards 
elevating popular education, and establishing it 
on a firm basis, till we have a body of teachers 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 161 

Profession of a Teacher disreputable. Must be raised to its proper Rank. 

regularly trained to their business, and the occu- 
pation of an instructer shall take its proper rank 
among the learned professions. When the title of 
schoolmaster, now almost a reproach and a hiss- 
ing, shall be a passport to respect, then, and not 
till then, will the general education become what 
it ought to be. And who, let me ask, is entitled to 
a higher degree of consideration and respect from 
the community than the devoted and laborious 
teacher of youth? Does the nature of a man's 
occupation confer any proportion of dignity, apart 
from the manner in which he performs its duties'? 
We can scarcely deny that it does. What nobler 
work, then, can task the human energies than that 
of training immortal beings to act well their part 
in life, and to enjoy the rewards of virtue through 
interminable years ? " It may be affirmed, with- 
out the least hesitation, that there is no office in 
general society more honourable or important than 
that of an instructer of the young, and none on 
which the present and future happiness of the hu- 
man race so much depends. But in consequence 
of [various circumstances], the office has been 
rendered inefficient for the great purposes of hu- 
man improvement, and the teacher himself de- 
graded from that rank which he ought to hold in 
the scale of society." He must now be raised to 
his proper elevation in that scale, or we must be 

14* 



162 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATIOK 

Necessity of Teachers' Seminaries. Established in other Countries. 

content to forego the advantages of a higher nioral 
and intellectual developement of the popular mind. 
But the days of miracles are over; and therefore 
it is that I conclude that this elevation is a result 
which can never take place, to the extent desired 
and needed, till seminaries for the education of 
TEACHERS shall havc gone into general operation. 
Institutions of this kind may be regarded as em- 
phatically the intellectual want of the age, and es- 
pecially of our ov^^n country. In Prussia this is no 
longer a want ; it is already a realization. The 
number of such institutions in that kingdom is now 
fully equal to supply the entire demand for teach- 
ers throughout its territories. France has nobly 
followed the lead of Prussia in this matter, and her 
Normal schools will ere long furnish her with a 
corps of instructors every way qualified for their 
work. Many of the German principalities, and 
some of the cantons of Switzerland, have achiev- 
ed the same thing. Similar establishments have 
been founded in Greece, and in some of the South 
American States ; particularly that formerly under 
the presidentship of the accomplished and hberal- 
minded Santander. And even in the heart of Af- 
rica, the monarch of Benin has invited a Mr. 
L'Espinat, a schoolmaster of Senegal, to establish 
in his capital a Norman school of mutual instruc- 
tion. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 1(}3 

History of these Instilulions. The life-blood of Popular Education. 

Nor are these institutions so recent in their in- 
ception as many probably imagine. They owe 
their origin to the celebrated Francke who flourish- 
ed nearly a century and a half ago. Beside his 
Orphan Asylum at Halle, stood a seminary for the 
education of teachers. From this time, education 
and the educator became objects of general inte- 
rest throughout Germany ; and since 1730, lectures 
on school keeping appear to have been universally 
delivered. Hecker, a pupil of the Frankean disci- 
pline, founded a school for teachers at Berlin in 
1740 ; and one of these seminaries in Hanover was 
established as early as 1750. Normal schools were 
founded in Bohemia in 1770 ; and before the French 
revolution similar establishments existed in Usin- 
gen, Dessan, Cassel, Detmold, Gotha, Oeringen, 
and Kiel. 

Thus you perceive how early the attention of 
other nations was directed to this great object of 
educating teachers, and how steadily and success- 
fully some of them have pursued it. And who 
shall say that they have attached an undue import- 
ance to it ? It is the very life-blood of an efficient 
system of popular instruction. In vain will you es- 
tablish schools for the people, unless you place 
over them competent instructers. The wisest plan 
without this will be devoid of all vitality. But 
where will you get such teachers, unless you make 



164 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Indispensable to good Teachers. Insisted on by the ablest Writers. 

them ? Can you summon them from the " vasty 
deep" to do your bidding ? You may call them, 
but they will not come ; and for the best of rea- 
sons,— they are not in being. When will the states 
of this Union, the boasted land of common schools 
and general intelligence, awake to the importance 
of this subject, and put forth their energies to sup- 
ply this deficiency ? There is a torpor in the pub- 
lic mind in relation to it, for which it is not easy 
to account, and from the effects of which, if it be 
not shaken off, forebodings of the most gloomy 
character mav well be entertained. 

The institution of seminaries for the education 
of teachers, is no visionary scheme, no wild chi- 
mera of mine ; their importance, their absolute ne- 
cessity, is held by you, gentlemen, in common with 
all other intelligent men, who have examined 
enough into the matter to form a decisive opinion 
upon it. Are they not insisted on by some of the 
ablest writers and most enlightened friends of edu- 
cation on both sides of the Atlantic ? — by Cousin 
in France, by Bulwer, Simpson, and Dick in Eng- 
land, by Bryce in Ireland, and by Woodbridge, 
Dwight, De Kay, and Dix in our own country ? 
Mr. Burrowes, I understand, will urge the immedi- 
ate necessity of establishing one or more in Penn- 
sylvania, in his forthcoming Annual Report to the 
Legislature of that state. Their importance has 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 165 

Report in favour of them by Mr. Morgan. Adopted in Philadelphia. 

been repeatedly affirmed in resolutions passed at 
popular meetings in various parts of the country, 
and especially by a highly respectable meeting 
held in the city of Philadelphia, about a twelve- 
month ago, when an elaborate argument was pre- 
sented in favour of their establishment in a Report 
drawn up by the Rev. Gilbert Morgan, and unani- 
mously adopted. Many of the first Literary Jour- 
nals of the age have earnestly and ably maintain- 
ed their indispensable necessity to a high order of 
popular education ; and among them the Edin- 
burgh Review, the Foreign Quarterly Review, 
and the London Quarterly Journal of Education, 
the American Annals of Education, and others too 
numerous to mention. I ask your attention to an 
extract from the 117th Number of the first men- 
tioned of these journals on the subject. The ex- 
tract is of some length, but it will repay a careful 
perusal. At page 27, the writer says : 

" Of all the preliminary steps, then, to the ad- 
justment of this great question, by far the most im- 
portant is the appointment of some means for 
training schoolmasters, not to any set of mechani- 
cal evolutions merely, but to a knowledge of the 
principles and practice of their profession, and to 
the able and enlightened discharge of its duties. 
The want of some such provision is the great vice 
of our Scottish system. Faults have thus crept 



166 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Extract from the Edinburgh Review. Refelence to Prussia. 

into the practice of our parish schools, which no- 
thing but the removal of the cause will eradicate. 
Our readers are aware what consequence the Prus- 
sian lawgivers attached to this object ; wisely con- 
sidering that the best plans of teaching are a dead 
letter, without good and able teachers ; and that to 
expect good teachers without good training, is to 
look for a crop without ploughing and sowing. In 
all their regulations on the subject of the Schulleh- 
rer seminarien, there is an anxious consideration 
of whatever can minister to the moral and intellec- 
tual improvement, and even to the personal com- 
fort and happiness, of the young teachers, which 
reminds us more of the tenderness of parental care 
and admonition, than of the stern and authoritative 
precepts of law. Every department is enjoined to 
have one of these seminaries ; the pupils to be ad- 
mitted between sixteen and eighteen, to the num- 
ber of from sixty to seventy in each ; to be situa- 
ted in towns of moderate size, that, on the one 
hand, they may be preserved from the corruption 
of very large ones, and, on the other, have access 
to schools which they can see and may improve 
in. The course of instruction delivered in these 
institutions presupposes that of the primary schools. 
Pupils are admitted, however, with whom it is ad- 
visable to go back on the primary instruction; 
and the first of the three years, which form the 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 157 

No such Institutions in the Island of Great Britain. 

complement of attendance for the whole course, is 
generally spent in revising and giving readier and 
fuller possession of previous acquirements. If that 
point, however, is already reached, it shortens the 
attendance by one year, and the pupil proceeds at 
once to the business of the second, which is em- 
ployed in giving him just notions of the philosophy 
of teaching, the treatment of the young mind, the 
communication of knowledge, the arrangement of 
school business, the apparatus and evolutions ne- 
cessary for arresting attention and husbanding 
time ; of all, in fine, that pertains to the theory and 
practice of moral education, intellectual training, 
and methodical instruction, — technically called 
Paedagogik, Didactik, and Methodik. The third 
year is more particularly devoted to the object of 
reducing to practice, in the schools of the place, 
and in that which is always attached to the semi- 
nary, the methods and theory he has been made 
acquainted with. We refer for other details to our 
preceding number. It is more to our present pur- 
pose to remark, that there does not exist, nor ever 
has existed, in the island of Great Britain, a single 
institution of this kind, which the Prussian people 
think so useful, that they have voluntarily gone 
beyond the number prescribed by law. There 
were, at the close of 1831, thirtv-three of these 



168 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Their Importance urged upon Parliament. 

seminaries in the nnonarchy, which is more than 
one for each department or circle.* 

" We cannot but think, therefore, that some ef- 
fort should be made to apply part, at least, of the 
Parliamentary grant to the purpose of training 
schoolmasters, if it were only to mark the opinion 
of Government of the importance and necessity of 
such establishments ; and to direct public attention 
to a branch of knowledge which, new and unex- 
plored as it is amongst us, has long taken its place 
in the circle of the arts and sciences, and long had 
its literature and its votaries, in Germany. Any- 
thing approaching, indeed, to the universal and 
permanent organisation in that country (for it is by 
no means confined to Prussia,) it would of course 
be vain to expect in this, at least for many years 
to come ; but means of opening up the subject, and 
commending it to the attention, not of teachers 
only, and patrons of schools, but of the public ge- 
nerally, need not be regarded as out of our reach. 
Might not, for example, a lectureship, or a pro- 
fessorship of the art of teaching (or, if a name be 
wanted for the new subject, of Didactics) be ap- 
pended to one or two of the Scotch universities ; 



There are now more than 60. — Author. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 169 

Lectureships on School- keeping recommended in tlie Scotch Universities. 

and, if such a novelty could not be engrafted on the 
old establishments of Oxford and Cambridge, tried, 
at least, in the infant institution of Durham ? A 
very small endowment, if any, would be wanted, 
provided Parliament would make it imperative on 
candidates for vacant schools (beginning at first 
with those of the better kind only), to produce a 
certificate of having attended such a course, or 
even to undergo an examination on the subjects 
there treated. 

" It is obvious in contemplating such an arrange- 
ment as this, that the greatest difficulty would be 
to find fit persons for such an office, — a difficulty 
which would scarcely, however, last beyond the 
first appointment. And even with regard to that, 
we need scarcely look farther than to the burgh 
and parochial schoolmasters of Scotland. As a 
body, indeed, they are not beyond being greatly 
benefited by attendance on such a course as we 
propose ; but there are men among them, and the 
number is on the increase, who, to an enthusiastic 
attachment to their profession, and a large experi- 
ence of its practical details, add much knowledge 
of its principles acquired by reading, and reflection, 
and an almost intuitive perception of what is right 
in the management of the youthful faculties, and in 
the manner of imparting instruction. Philosophy 
and experience must go hand in hand, to fit a man 

15 



170 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Necessity of Inspection. Required in Prussia and France. 

for the purpose in view. If such lectureships were 
instituted in places where there was access also to 
schools in which the doctrines might be illustrated, 
the practice exemplified, and the teaching partly 
conducted by the student, we should accept it as 
the greatest boon that could be conferred on the 
parochial education of Scotland. There are few, 
perhaps none, of the defects that still cling to our 
parish schools which would not disappear under 
the wholesome influence of such a measure, car- 
ried ably and honestly into effect. For example, 
next to that measure itself, there is nothing 
more loudly called for to improve our parochial 
discipline, than a plan of authorised inspection. 
This, we have seen, is regarded as an essential 
part of the Prussian and French systems, and is 
executed by delegates appointed by the Minister 
of Public Instruction. It seems natural that the 
proposed lecturers, with assistants, if required, 
should have this arduous duty devolved upon them. 
Again, a well arranged succession of school-books 
is still a desideratum : none would be so likely to 
supply it well, as men whose lives would be de- 
voted to the study of their art. But if such a pro- 
ject shall appear to some, as we are prepared to 
expect, visionary and impracticable, let strenuous 
endeavours be at least made to multiply the num- 
ber and increase the efficiency of the model 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. ni 

Clues, whether Teachers' Seminaries should be Independent Institutions. 

schools we have. There is an endowment for such 
an institution, called the Harrington School, at 
Bishop Auckland ; and the Metropolitan schools of 
both the societies are open, and have been used for 
such purposes, as far as their means would go. 
To improve and assist these would be a far more 
profitable way of expending the grant, than to 
build schools for the propagation of imperfect me- 
thods." 

It is a practical question of no small importance 
whether, if the proposed seminaries are established, 
they shall exist as independent institutions, or in 
connexion with and dependency on other institu- 
tions already in being, — either colleges or acade- 
mies. Much may be said, with great plausibility 
and force, on both sides of the question ; especially 
in favour of their connexion with colleges. Here 
we have buildings, libraries, lecture rooms, appa- 
ratus, cabinets, and learned professors, already 
provided, without any new outlay of money, and 
nothing seems wanting but pupils to be trained to 
become the future educators of our children. The 
Edinburgh Review, in the paragraphs just quoted, 
advocates the adoption of this plan in Scotland. 
But, gentlemen, mark the grounds of this advocacy. 
It recommends the establishment of lectureships on 
school-keeping in the Scotch universities, not as the 
best plan in fact for the training of teachers, but as 



172 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



Separate Organizations preferable. Reasons for tbis Preference. 



probably the most feasible one, under existing cir- 
cumstances ; that is, as far better than no plan at 
all for the attainment of this object. 

This is exactly my own opinion in reference to 
this country ; — I refer here not to the question of 
feasibility, but to the comparative excellence of the 
the two systems. No one can doubt that much 
would be gained to the cause of popular education, 
by having departments for the training of teachers 
connected with our colleges, and even with our 
County Grammar Schools ; but this admission is 
entirely distinct from any opinion as to whether 
that system is the best that could be adopted, or 
even the best that has been proposed. For myself, 
w^hile I admit that those who differ from me have 
much that is weighty to urge in favour of their 
plan, I incline strongly to the belief that separate 
and independent organizations, though more costly, 
and even, if you please, less efficient, at first, would, 
in the end, secure the common object in view far 
better and more effectually than the appended and 
subordinate departments, which some worthy and 
judicious persons seem to desire. 

In the first place, consider the constitutional 
tendencies of human nature, especially as display- 
ed by young men in seminaries of education. He 
is but a novice in the philosophy of observation, 
who has not seen frequent manifestations of the 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION, 173 

Its Effect on the Character of Teachers better. 

strong disposition which exists in the young to 
" run" each other, as it is termed. Now the 
future schoolmasters, being generally young men 
in indigent circumstances, and belonging to a 
really subordinate department of the college, would 
infallibly become the butt for ridicule of the classi- 
cal students, — the targets, as it were, at which 
sarcasm would aim her shafts ; shafts not, indeed, 
pointed with poisoned metals, but still sharp enough 
to inflict momentary pain, and whose hits would 
sometimes leave festering wounds behind. No 
power on earth could prevent this, while human 
nature and the state of society remain what they 
are at present. It is easy to foresee what effect 
such a state of things would produce. It would 
either sour the minds of the future teachers, and 
impart a certain ferocity to their temper and dis- 
position ; or it would beget a mortifying sense of 
inferiority, destructive of all proper self-respect 
and personal independence. 

Again: It is admitted, on all hands, that the 
profession of teaching ought to be as respectable 
as any other in society ; and that it must become 
so, before it can be productive of all the benefits, 
which it is capable of achieving. It is also known, 
by all who know any thing about the delicate re- 
lations of cause and effect, how much men's feel- 
ings and opinions are influenced by names, appear- 

15* 



174 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Also on their Respectability and Qualifications. 

ances, and airy nothings, or that which seems 
little more substantial. Now the respectability of 
teaching will and must depend somewhat on the 
respectability of the institutions where instructers 
are trained. And will any man tell me that mere 
departmental appendages to colleges and acade- 
mies can become as respectable in the eyes of the 
community, as original, independent institutions, 
wath their own presidents, professors, buildings, 
libraries, apparatus, and all the other parapherna- 
lia of educational establishments 1 It is impossible 
in the nature of things ; and few, I imagine, will 
maintain that they can. 

J shall content myself, and dismiss the argu- 
ment, with one further consideration on this point. 
It is this: The young men who are preparing 
themselves to be teachers, will not be as well 
taught, either theoretically or practically, in the 
proposed college departments, as they would be 
in the teachers' seminary. You will not, I trust, 
misunderstand me here. Had I intended to cast 
any slur upon college instruction, I certainly 
would not address myself to a college Professor, 
All that I mean to say, and what I firmly believe, 
is, that Professors in colleges would not feel the 
same interest in their lectures and instructions to 
the pupils of a subordinate department in their re- 
spective institutions, that would be felt by the Pro- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION 175 

General Principles on which Teachers' Seminaries ought to be founded. 

fessors in a Normal Seminary, where instructions 
of the kind in question would constitute their sole 
business. And besides this, the modes of teaching, 
adapted to common schools and to colleges, are 
so different, so almost opposite to each other, that 
it is no disparagement to an eminent and highly 
successful Professor in a college, to say that he is 
not the most fit person to instruct those who are 
to become the teachers of children. Teachers in 
colleges cannot properly be selected with much 
reference to their fitness for such a task ; while the 
very reverse would be true of the Normal school. 
There such qualification would be all in all. If it 
be said that one Professor at least in each college 
would be so chosen; my reply is, that in the 
teachers' seminaries all would be selected upon 
this principle. From these premises the conclu- 
sion seems fairly deducible that the future educa- 
tors would themselves be better educated in semi- 
naries with independent organizations, than in 
departments connected with collegiate institutions. 
Having thus strenuously urged the necessity of 
founding teachers' seminaries, and briefly intimated 
my reasons for preferring a separate organization 
for them, I will venture upon one or two sugges- 
tions as to the general principles on which, as it 
seems to me, they ought to be established. Two 
leading results should be aimed at, — first, a supply 



176 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Two leading Results to be aimed at. 

of good instructers, and then, some security that 
their services will be given, at least for a few 
years, to the state in which they are educated. 

The candidate for the profession of teaching, in 
order to become suitably prepared for his work, 
must learn two things ; — he must learn to know, 
and he must learn to teach, two branches of know- 
ledge quite distinct in their nature, and not by any 
means always found in union with each other. 
Every Normal Seminary must propose to itself to 
communicate both these branches to its pupils. 
But what ought the pupils to learn to know? The 
view given in the last chapter of the education 
proper for the people determines that which would 
be suitable for their teachers. The wants of the 
people must be exclusively consulted here. As 
religious and moral culture was there shown to be 
the object first in importance in the education of the 
young, so it should be made of paramount weight 
in the training of the future educators. Above all 
things else, they ought to be made familiar with 
the histories, whether of individuals or of nations, 
contained in the Bible; with its pure and unequalled 
code of morality; with the evidences for its divine 
origin ; and with a general outline of the history 
of the true religion in all ages and countries. For 
the rest, they should receive appropriate instruc- 
tions on all those other sciences which they will 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 177 

Teachers must learn to know and to teach. 

afterwards have to teach themselves. *' The ob- 
ject of these instructions should be not to nnake 
the students profound mathematicians, [natural- 
ists,] philosophers, or divines, but to impart to 
them a clear and comprehensive viev^^ of all those 
subjects of a practical nature which may be level 
to the comprehension of the bulk of mankind, 
which may present them with delightful objects 
of contemplation, which may have a bearing on 
their [own] present and future happiness," and 
increase their ability to be useful to others. 

Instructions of this kind should be accompanied 
with others designed to give the learners a know- 
ledge of, and skill in, the practical part of their 
future duties. The principles of the juvenile mind, 
the science of school-government, the means of 
rendering the pursuit of knowledge attractive to 
the young, the plan and routine of study, the divi- 
sion of time, the arrangement and management of 
classes, the moral treatment of pupils, the punish- 
ment of offences, the best modes of illustration, and 
whatever else appertains to the practical instruc- 
tion and management of a school, should be fully 
unfolded, and illustrated in minute detail. For 
this purpose it is indispensable that one or more 
elementary model-schools should be attached to 
each teacher's seminary, where the future instruc- 
tor can have constant opportunities both of seeing 



178 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

How can the services of Teachers be secured to the State ? 

his own teachers conduct the class exercises, and 
of hearing recitations himself under the eye of 
those who will be able to correct his errors, to 
foster his excellencies, and to lead him on step by 
step to that practical acquaintance with the duties 
of his profession, which will be the pledge of his 
success and the measure of his usefulness. 

The question of securing the services of these 
men, after they shall have completed their course 
of studies, to the state in which they were edu- 
cated, is perhaps one of greater practical difficul- 
ty. It is a question on which, I confess, I have 
not bestowed much thought, but the object con- 
templated I believe to be entirely attainable. Per- 
mit me to suggest one method, not as the only, or 
even the best means of attaining it, but as one 
which has occurred to my own mind. It is some- 
what similar to that employed by the General Go- 
vernment to secure a like object in reference to 
the cadets educated at West Point. Let the state 
not charge any of the seminarists more than one 
half the actual cost of their education, and let her 
exact from each on entering a written pledge, 
guarantied by friends, to follow the profession of 
teaching for a specified number of years, say from 
three to five, and to exercise it within her limits 
during that period, — unless, on changing his pur- 
pose, he first pay back to the state the whole sum 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 179 



Details more difficult. No Models in this Country. 



with interest, expended on his education. Some- 
thing like this, if I remember right, is required of 
each pupil on entering the Normal schools of Prus- 
sia. Let the state add to this a judicious system 
of annual or triennial rewards, or honorary dis- 
tinctions to be conferred on such as distinguish 
themselves by the ability and faithfulness with 
which they discharge their duties; and the end 
desired would, I can scarcely doubt, be already 
well nigh secured. 

On the soundness of these organic principles for 
teachers' seminaries, I do not entertain the least 
doubt; but in forming such an institution, an almost 
endless quantity of details would be requisite, in 
reference to which, I frankly avow, I should be at 
great loss in making up an opinion, and I doubt 
not many others would find themselves in the same 
uncertainty. How can these doubts and the hesi- 
tation consequent upon them be removed? In 
most matters of importance, where it is a question 
how we shall proceed ourselves, it is usual to con- 
sult the experience of others. But whither shall 
we look for the lights of experience on this mo- 
mentous question ? There is not, as far as I am 
informed, a single institution of the kind proposed, 
established by any state in this confederacy. The 
departments instituted for this purpose by the state 
of New York, as mere appendages to a few of the 



180 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



The iJepanments in New lork no exception to this. 

County Grammar Schools, cannot be considered 
as forming an exception to this remark. Mr. Dix, 
the able Superintendent of Common Schools in that 
state, is not at all satisfied with this plan. He says, 
" If the foundations of the whole system of public 
instruction in New York were to be laid over, it 
would be advisable to create separate seminaries 
for the education of teachers." There is an insti- 
tution for the training of teachers in Andover, 
Mass., under the care of the Rev. S. Hall, the 
author of several valuable works on education, 
which is said to have been very useful in its influ- 
ence on common schools in that state ; but, if I am 
correctly informed, it is not in any way connected 
with or dependent on the civil authorities of the 
commonwealth. And these establishments are, as 
far as my knowledge ^oes, the extent to which 
measures have been put in actual operation for 
the specific object of educating teachers in this 
country ! 

Whither, then, I ask again, shall we turn our 
eyes for light to resolve our doubts, and mo- 
dels that may help us in our hour of need ? To 
Prussia certainly, where institutions of the kind in 
question are best organized, have been longest in 
operation, and have produced the most important 
results. I have said, and it will not be denied, 
that it is customary, in important matters, to con- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. igi 

Must consult the Experience of other Nations, especially Prussia. 

suit the experience of others. Is not this done in 
all the learned professions, and in every pursuit of 
life ? Are not agents often employed for this pur- 
pose by individuals, by colleges, by incorporated 
companies, and even by sovereign states? Suppose, 
for example, we were to hear of the discovery of 
some new principle in mechanics, more valuable 
than any hitherto discovered, or of a new applica- 
tion of some principle previously known, and to 
learn that in some European country it had been 
applied to machinery with complete success; sup- 
pose, further, that we were desirous of introducing 
this new principle, or application, as the case might 
be, into our own manufactories, would we do it 
upon the mere representation of books, however 
well written or scientific? No, surely; it is not in 
this way that men act, where important pecuniary 
interests are involved. We would pursue a wiser 
course; we would send out some capable person, 
commissioned to make a thorough examination, 
and to bring back, not merely a written report, 
and plans on paper, but also his own personal 
knowledge, derived from personal observation. 
This is, in fact, often done. It is needless to enu- 
merate cases; they are so common, that the me- 
mory of every man of the least information will 
supply them in abundance. 

Let those states, then, that really desire to found 

16 



182 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

The sending out of Agents recommended. 

systems of public instruction, fitted to bless the 
present generation, and worthy of being transmit- 
ted to posterity, act with the ordinary wisdom of 
intelligent individuals in undertaking an important 
enterprise. If they would set themselves intelli- 
gently about the first duty of a free state — to dif- 
fuse knowledge and virtue among its citizens — let 
them commission competent agents to visit the 
Prussian schools,* who shall be charged to take a 
general survey of the operation of the whole sys- 
tem, and to remain long enough at one of the best 
of the Normal seminaries to become perfectly fami- 
liar with all its organic principles, its details of 
arrangement, its modes of intercourse, discipline, 
and instruction, its examinations, and, in short, 
with every thing appertaining to it in all its as- 
pects and relations. After an adequate examina- 
tion, let them return and spread the result of their 
inquiries severally before the states by whom they 
were employed. These will then be prepared to 
try the experiment of educating teachers under 
the most favourable circumstances, and if they 



* This has actually been done by Ohio ; a state which, though 
comparatively young, is already far in advance of many of her 
elder sisters, in her schools, her internal improvements, her 
eleemosinary inslilutions, and various other points of her public 

policy. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 183 

Expense no Objection. Cousin's Report Deficient. 

fail, it will not be foi' the reason that, with a 
penny-wise pound-foolish policy, they groped their 
way in the dark, because they feared the expense 
of procuring those lights, which were within their 
reach. No objection, as it seems to me, could be 
made by any state to such a procedure, but its 
expense. Yet what would the expense be ? A few 
thousand dollars at most — a mere nothing in com- 
parison with the magnitude of the object to be 
secured. 

It may, indeed, be urged as a plea to obviate the 
necessity of the course recommended, that we 
have the Report of Cousin on the state of Educa- 
tion in Prussia, and we may be called upon to say 
what need there is of further light. It is true that 
the eminent philosopher and educationist referred 
to, performed the duty assigned him with an abi- 
lity honourable alike to himself and the French 
nation ; and his Report is a mine of valuable in- 
formation concerning Prussia, and of just princi- 
ples in relation to education in general. But Cou- 
sin was not long enough in Prussia to become 
thoroughly conversant with her educational insti- 
tutions.* His Report presents us with a variety 



* He arrived there on the 5th of June, 1831, and left about 
the 1st of July of the same year, 



184 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Would answer for France, but not adapted to our circumstances. 

of minute details in reference to the economy and 
regulations of the Normal schools, but he gives us 
no clear idea of the manner in which the various 
branches of knowledge are taught to those who 
are themselves to become the teachers of the 
primary schools. This, in fact, was hardly neces- 
sary under the circumstances ; for he was to re- 
turn, and to superintend in person the establish- 
ment of the national schools in France. Besides, 
it should be borne in mind that he wrote for a 
people differing widely from ours in their manners, 
customs, institutions, laws, form of government, 
and the whole structure of society. What the 
citizens of our several states need for their com- 
plete satisfaction is an examination by one of 
themselves, — a man familiar with their institutions 
and with their habitudes of thought, feeling, and 
action, who should pursue his investigations into 
the system with a constant reference to the ques- 
tion of its availability for their own republican 
purposes. They require for their guidance not 
only a Report from such a man, but that deep 
familiarity with the spirit of the system, and that 
intimate acquaintance with the minutise of its ar- 
rangements, and with its special modes of instruc- 
tion, which can be gained only by personal in- 
spection, and can never be fully shadowed forth in 



HINTS OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 185 

A Report from one of our own Countrymen needed. 

a written Report. Between a mere composition, 
however eloquent or able, and this full, fresh, 
breathing knowledge, there is the same difference 
that there is between a marble statue and a living 
man. 



16* 



186 



CHAPTER IV. 



COMPENSATION OF TEACHERS. 



Present inadequate Compensation of Teachers — No Class in tlie 
Community so poorly rewarded — Wages of Mechanics and 
other Manual-Labourers as compared with the pay of School- 
Masters — Compensation of Instructers as indicated by the 
School-Returns of Massachusetts and New York — Alarming- 
Nature of the Facts disclosed by these Returns — Manifold 
Evils of this ill-judged Parsimony — Examination into the 
Claims of Competent and Faithful Teachers to receive a libe- 
ral Reward — Justice requires it — Sound Policy requires it — 
Teachers should be supplied with the Means of maintaining a 
Family — The Question, what would be a fair average Salary? 
considered — Inquiry into the Cost of the System recommend- 
ed — Twenty Millions a Year for the Whole United States — 
This Sum compared with the Object in View and the Advan- 
tages that would result from the Attainment of the Object — 
Whence is the Money to come? — This Question dispassionate- 
ly answered — First, from the Annual Proceeds arising from 
the Sale of Public Lands — Secondly, from the Interest of the 
Surplus Revenue deposited with the States — Thirdly, from the 
Avails of present and additional Grants of Land for this Pur- 
pose — These three Sources would give ten Millions a Year — 
The other ten Millions to be raised by the Districts them- 
selves — Those who refuse, to receive none of the Public 
Money — Present Endowments — Bequests — The Nation ex. 
pends liberally for less important Objects — Florida War — 
Last War with Great Britain — Astounding Fact in relation to 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 197 



Compensation of Teachers. Very inadequate. 

the Cost of the Wars in which England was concerned be- 
tween 1688 and 1815 — Enough to Educate the whole World 
to the End of Time — Poverty and Economy of Nations when 
Education is to be provided for — Our Parsimony in main- 
taining Schools a National Disgrace — A more liberal Compen- 
sation to Schoolmasters essential to an efficient Education of 
the People — The necessary Expenditure really small in Com- 
parison with our Resources and the Vastness of the Object to 
be gained. 

The compensation of teachers is a matter of 
great moment, and demands especial considera- 
tion in establishing a general and permanent sys- 
tem of popular education. There is no class in 
the community whose services are so poorly re- 
warded, in proportion to the labour required and 
the responsibility involved, as those of the primary 
schoolmaster. The average wages of mechanics 
is not less than a dollar and a half a day, which 
would give them an annual income of over four 
hundred dollars. Labourers on farms, in facto- 
ries, and at most other occupations, can easily 
realize two hundred dollars a year, and frequently 
more. 

How stands the matter with respect to school- 
masters? The school-returns in Massachusetts 
and New York, for the year 1834, show the fol- 
lowing results : in the former of those states the 
average sum paid for instruction in each school- 
district for that year, was a hundred and fourteen 



188 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Shown by the School Returns of Massachusetts and New York. 

dollars ; in the latter, for the same year, it amount- 
ed to only seventy-two dollars. Yet the systems 
of Massachusetts and New York are much vaunt- 
ed for their excellence, and compared with those 
of many other states they undoubtedly deserve all 
the praise that has been bestowed upon them ; con- 
sidered in themselves, however, they will be found 
to need great amendment, if not an entire recon- 
struction, before they can be said to have reached 
a proper elevation, and are capable of accom- 
plishing the appropriate objects of such institutions. 
How is it with respect to the compensation of in- 
structors in our own state ? According to the best 
data in my possession for forming an estimate, not 
more than thirty dollars a year is paid for instruc- 
tion in each school district ; and this I believe to 
be rather an over-estimate than otherwise. 

These facts are deeply humiliating: they are 
more ; they are positively alarming. Is it possible 
for a government, based avowedly on popular in- 
telligence, to repose in safety on schools main- 
tained at so cheap a rate ? The very scavengers, 
who clean the streets of our cities, are better paid 
for their fihhy labour,* than men to whom is com- 
mitted a trust that involves the highest interests of 



Thoy get generally a dollar a day. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 189 

Evils of this Parsimony. Claims of faithful Schoolmasters. 

society. No wonder that ignorant and thriftless 
adventurers make up the body of our teachers, 
that our children hate instruction, and that parents 
frequently complain that their money is thrown 
away on the common schools. No doubt it is 
often thrown away, and even worse than that, on 
men who would consent to labour in such a call- 
ing for so miserable a pittance. 

The evils of this parsimonious, ill-judged policy 
are manifold. It bars the doors of our school- 
houses against competent instructors ; it prevents 
young men from expending either time or money 
in preparing themselves to be teachers ; it makes 
parents indifferent to common schools ; it disgusts 
the young with the pursuit of knowledge ; it ren- 
ders the profession of teaching disreputable ; and, 
worse than all, it produces a paralysis in the pub- 
lic mind in reference to the whole matter of popu- 
lar education. 

Let us look a little into the claims of a compe- 
tetent and faithful schoolmaster to receive a liberal 
compensation. It is a fair principle, and one that 
will scarcely be questioned, that men ought, other 
things being equal, to be rewarded for their work 
in proportion to the expense of preparation for it, 
the actual labour required, and the responsibility 
which it involves. I will not detain you, gentle- 
men, to expatiate on the time and money that must 



190 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Justice and Policy require that they should be well paid. 

be expended in order to become properly qualified 
for the business of instruction; nor on the self- 
denial, toil, and wear of nerves which actual ser- 
vice requires; nor on the consequences which 
depend upon the manner in which the duties of the 
profession are performed, — consequences, which 
extend to every interest of society, and reach 
through all the relations and destinies of man. 
These things are undeniable ; and if the principle 
above stated be a correct one, then the teachers 
of our common schools ought to receive more for 
their services than any other class, except the 
members of the learned professions. Sheer justice, 
then, would require that they be well paid; sound 
policy demands the same thing. It is indispensa- 
ble to good schools ; it is especially requisite in 
order to secure that great essential element of 
sound instruction, permanent continuance in the 
profession of teaching on the part of those engaged 
in it. Will men continue to exercise a calling for 
life, which does not supply them with the means 
of maintaining a family? It cannot be expected, 
and it ought not to be desired. Men who have 
studied the philosophy of the infant mind in their 
own children, and who are accustomed to rule 
well their own household, will be better qualified 
both to instruct and to govern a school, than those 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 191 



Five Hundred Dollars a fair average Compensation. 

who are deficient in this domestic experience and 
sympathy. 

What, then, would be a fair average compensa- 
tion for well qualified teachers of common schools, 
— men trained to the profession, and devoted to it 
for life? Any industrious mechanic, with but a 
moderate share of skill, can make four hundred 
hundred dollars a year, and many in fact realize 
much more than that as the annual proceeds of 
their labour. Would you give an able school- 
master less? That were to declare that the con- 
struction of a steam-engine, the building of a house, 
or the manufacture of furniture for it, is both a 
worthier occupation and a more important matter 
than the education of your children. None, I am 
aware, will avow such a sentiment ; but if it is 
practically acted upon, where is the difference? 
Four hundred dollars, with the use of a comfort- 
able house, and a few acres of land, is the least 
average annual salary that ought to be thought of 
as an adequate compensation for the services of 
well qualified instructers. This would be equiva- 
lent to about five hundred dollars a year, and with 
such an average of remuneration, teachers of ex- 
traordinary merit would occasionally receive as 
high as eight, nine, or even ten hundred dollars 
per annum. These places would be the prizes to 
stimulate honourable ambition, the rewards of emi- 



192 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Cost to the whole United States of an adequate System of Education. 

nent ability and success. This would very soon 
elevate teaching to the rank of a profession ; make 
it respectable ; enlist talent and worth in the work 
of instruction ; and raise our schools to an eleva- 
tion of excellence, that would fill the measure of 
our own glory, and command the admiration of 
the world ; and what is of much more importance, 
purify our morals, enlarge our enjoyments, cement 
our union, and give stability to whatever in our 
institutions is worthy of a patriotic attachment. 

How much would the establishment, by the se- 
veral members of our confederacy, of systems of 
public instruction that should carry out these views, 
cost the whole United States ? The number of free 
inhabitants at the present time is not less than 
twelve millions. It is estimated that about one- 
fourth of the population of a country ought to be 
in the common elementary schools. In Prussia, 
Massachusetts, and Connecticut, there is a little 
less, and in New York a fraction more than one- 
fourth in these schools. According to this calcu- 
lation there are three millions of children in the 
United States, whose education ought to be pro- 
vided for by the several states. An average of 
sixty pupils is enough to form a district. This 
would give fifty thousand districts for the whole 
Union ; and an average compensation to each 
teacher of four hundred dollars per year would 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 193 

Twenty millions a year. Not large in comparison with benefits resulting. 

require an annual expenditure of twenty millions 
of dollars ; or one million six hundred and sixty- 
six thousand six hundred and sixty-six dollars for 
every million of inhabitants. 

This appears to be a vast sum, and 1 cannot 
deny that it is a very large one. Multitudes no 
doubt will be startled by it, and will be ready to ex- 
claim, " it is an expenditure that will never be made 
for that object." But is there any insuperable ob- 
stacle in the way of it ? Is the country too poor to 
bear this expenditure ? Is the sum in fact a large 
one, when you place it by the side of the object in 
view, and the benefits it would certainly confer 
upon the nation? Consider what that object is. It 
is to elevate men to the proper dignity of their na- 
ture, by cultivating and improving their various 
powers of miind and body, by teaching them the 
nature and purposes of these powers, and by im- 
parting to them as comprehensive a knowledge as 
possible of the animate and inanimate productions 
of Nature, and their relations to the human consti- 
tution. Consider also the benefits that would re- 
sult from the attainment of this object. The happi- 
ness of society in its three great subdivisions of 
moral, mental, and physical pleasures, would be 
increased in a ratio that can now hardly be con- 
ceived of; our civil immunities would be establish- 
ed upon a basis that would ensure their perpetuity ; 

17 



194 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



These benefits enumerated. Whence is the money to come. 

our pecuniary interests themselves would be ad- 
vanced; and an in^ipulse be given to the great 
cause of human improvement, which would tell 
upon the history of remote tribes and distant ages. 
And now, Gentlemen, let me, in all sincerity, put 
it to you and to all other candid and intelligent 
men, whether twenty millions a year for the w^hole 
United States is not a small sum, when placed in 
juxtaposition with these unspeakable advantages. 
I feel confident, from such a jury, of a unanimous 
verdict in my favour. 

But I hear the question pouring from all quar- 
ters on my ear, whence is this money to come ? 
This is an important question, and I will endeavour 
to give it a dispassionate and rational answer. I 
will not detain you by descanting on how much 
can be saved from this luxury and that amusement, 
nor even upon the vast expenses of our very vices, 
— though more than enough for our purpose might 
be subtracted from whfit is expended in these ways, 
with scarcely any sensible diminution of the ag- 
gregate amount. But I will let all that pass, and 
leave every man in the quiet enjoyment of such 
means as he possesses, according to any plan that 
may chime with his own fancy ; and will proceed 
at once to something more tangible and positive. 
I will show you how, by a wise and not over-libe- 
ral legislation on the part of the General and State 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 195 

First from proceeds of Sales of Public Lands. 

Governments, the sum required might be raised 
without any tedious delays. 

It may be assumed as a postulate, that the re- 
ceipts of the United States from the sale of the pub- 
lic lands, will amount, in a healthy state of the 
country, to an average of five millions a year. It 
is the opinion of many of our wisest statesmen, of 
both political parties, that this fund is the property 
of the states under the deeds of session by which 
the lands were ceded to the United States ; and 
that, therefore, these lands cannot, of right, be con- 
sidered as a part of the resources of the Union, for 
general revenue. This question I will not now stop 
to argue ; nor is it essential for the attainment of 
our object that we should adopt one side or the 
other of it. It is enough that it be admitted, as I 
suppose it will be, universally, that it is competent 
to the General Government to make what dispo- 
sition it pleases of the annual avails of these lands, 
provided it be for an object promotive of the gene- 
ral welfare. I propose, then, that these lands be 
set apart as a perpetual fund for the support of com- 
mon schools, the yearly revenue from which shall 
be distributed to the states, in the ratio of their free 
population, for this object exclusively. The sub- 
traction of this five millions from the general reve- 
nue would not be felt by an individual being in the 
whole country, and the appropriation of it in the 



196 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



Gov. Vance's Opinion. Goes even beyond th*? Author's. 



way proposed would furnish at once one-fourth of 
the whole sum required for the diffusion of educa- 
tion, and that of a high order, among all the peo- 
ple of this Union. 

Since the above paragraph was written, an ex- 
tract from Governor Vance's recent Message to 
the legislature of Ohio, has fallen under my no- 
tice. It was with no ordinary pleasure that I 
found in it confirmation of the soundness and pro- 
priety of the suggestions I have ventured to make 
respecting the proceeds of the public lands, from a 
statesman, so enlightened, so patriotic, and so so- 
ber in all his views, as the present Governor of 
Ohio. Governor Vance goes even a step beyond 
me, and declares it as his opinion that the fund 
legally and equitably belongs to this object, and 
that congress, in giving it that direction, w^ould 
not, strictly speaking, entitle itself to the praise of 
generosity, but would have done nothing more 
than fulfil a sacred trust, the execution of which 
is called for by every principle of justice. 

" One of the first objects," he says, " that should 
attract the attention of every statesinan, is the ha- 
bits, condition, and future prospects of the youth 
of the state. Through them we may read the fu- 
ture destiny of the republic, for good or for evil. 
If we suffer them to grow up in idleness and igno- 
rance, we must look to the future with forebodings 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 197 

This Fund legally and equitably belongs to this Object. 

of the misery and the degradation that await our 
descendants. Whilst on the other hand, if we give 
them industrious habits, guard well their morals, 
and improve their minds, we may fondly antici- 
pate that our institutions will be perpetuated, and 
our descendants grow up and continue in the en- 
joyment of freedom, independence, and prosperity. 

" The means of attaining this desirable end, 
must be had through our common schools ; and 
although much has been done in our own as well 
as several of our sister states, in the great cause 
of education and common schools, yet there is still 
much to be done to perfect the system, so as to 
bring within the reach of our whole population the 
means of a thorough common school education. 

*' Tlie fund that legally and equitably belongs to 
this object^ is the proceeds of the sales of the public 
lands. By giving it this direction j which is loudly 
called for by every principle of justice , congress 
ivould do nothing more than fulfil a sacred trusty 
ivhilst by loithholding it they incur a heavy respon- 
sibility to a class of our fellow-citizens, whose ivants 
should be the first object of their solicitude and at- 
tention.'^ 

The disposition, here recommended, of the an- 
nual avails of the public domain, would, as we 
have already seen, furnish one-fourth of the sum 
shown to be necessary for the maintenance of 

17* 



198 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



Second Souica. Interest of the Moneys deposited with the States. 



good popular schools ; but where are the remain- 
ing three-fourths to come from ? Let us cast about 
a little to ascertain whether there are any other 
resources at hand. When the late Deposite Act 
shall have been carried into full effect, thirty-six 
millions of dollars will have been distributed to the 
several states. It is not probable that this money 
will ever be demanded back ; but, to make as- 
surance doubly sure, I propose that it be given to 
the states with whom it is deposited, on the con- 
dition that the interest of it be devoted for ever to 
the sole object of improving and maintaining po- 
pular schools ; and that it be withdrawn from those 
states that decline this condition. The interest of 
this fund, allowing a sufficiency of it for the ex- 
penses of its due management, will be two millions 
more towards the amount needed. 

Whither shall we look for a third resource to 
aid us in our work 1 Ten millions of acres of the 
public lands have already been granted to the 
different western states for the support of common 
schools. These lands are now worth on an ave- 
rage at least three dollars an acre; probably much 
more. Those of Michigan were sold last summer, 
during the height of the money pressure, and 
brought from eight to four hundred and fifty dol- 
lars per acre, or an average of about twenty dol- 
4a|s, I propose that an additional ten millions of 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 199 

Appropriations of Lands. Lastly, Moneys raised by Districts. 

acres, of equal value, be given to the other states ; 
and these grants, when sold, would constitute a 
fund of at least sixty millions of dollars, the interest 
on which would be three millions annually, over 
and above the most liberal allowance for the eX"- 
pense of managing it. 

We have now ten millions of the twenty we 
have shown to be requisite. Now let the several 
states in this Union say to each school district 
within their respective limits, — We will place two 
hundred dollars a year in your treasury, provided 
you will double the sum out of your own funds, 
— and who can doubt that a great majority of the 
districts would at once, and thankfully, receive the 
boon on the condition offered ? And the number 
that might now refuse to comply with such terms, 
would, in less than ten years, be dwindled to a 
mere handful; if, indeed, as is more probable, the 
non-complying districts were not all, ere that time, 
numbered with the quiddities of the schoolmen. 
But it would not be necessary, after a few years, 
to tax the districts even in the proportion here sup- 
posed. There are common-school funds in the 
different states already endowed, which yield an 
aggreg^ate annual income of nearly or quite a mil- 
lion of dollars. And let but a sufficient impulse 
be once given, let the breeze of popular favour set 
fairly in the direction of national education, and 



200 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Present Endowments. Individual Bequests. Florida War. 

liberal-minded individuals will not be wanting, 
who, by bequests and otherwise, will endow fa- 
vourite districts with funds sufficient to support 
their teachers ; and the spectacle even may yet 
be seen of some future Wills, Girard, or Smith- 
son thus providing a perpetuity of instruction for 
all the common schools in a whole township. 
Hundreds of thousands of dollars may in this way, 
at no very distant period, be annually realised for 
the cause in whose behalf we are pleading. Does 
any one say to me, because I have presented these 
calculations and propositions, as Festus on a cer- 
tain occasion said to Paul,— Thou art beside thy- 
self? — I adopt the noble reply of Paul, and give it 
in the full confidence that it is a just one, — I am 

NOT MAD, BUT SPEAK FORTH THE WORDS OF TRUTH 
AND SOBERNESS. 

Does the nation expend grudgingly on other 
objects, and those of incomparably less import- 
ance? Has not the war in which she is now en- 
gaged with a paltry handful of Seminole Indians, 
already cost her, out of her treasury, over twenty- 
five millions of dollars, and, indirectly, many mil- 
lions more ? And will she not expend twice and 
even thrice that sum, if need be, before she will give 
over the contest, and succumb to her foe? No one 
complains of this, if there is no waste in the expen- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 201 

Its Expense. Cost of last War with Great Britain. 

diture. All applaud, however much they may 
regret it. Did we not expend more than a hundred 
miilions of dollars in carrying on the last war with 
Great Britain 1 I was not old enough at that time 
to have any opinion of my own on the politics of 
the country; but my father fought in that war, 
and I have not yet seen cause to honour him the 
less for it. But, at the same time, it is a fact, that 
I desire to be distinctly know^n, 1 would have it told 
in Gath, and published in Askelon, and committed 
to the four winds to be borne to every corner of 
the country, that, if an amount, equal to the cost of 
that war, had been then invested and suffered to 
accumulate to the present time, it would consti- 
tute a sum, the bare interest of which would be 
more than the most ardent^ and, if you please, ex- 
travagant, friend of education could ask for the 
maintenance of an adequate number of first-rate 
popular schools throughout the length and breadth 
of the land. 

Mr. Dick has shown that the wars in which 
England was engaged between 1688 and 1815, a 
period of one hundred and twenty-seven years, 
cost that nation eleven thousand six hundred and 
sixty-five millions of dollars. It is reasonable to 
suppose that the nations against which those wars 
were waged, expended an equal sum ; and, if so, 
it gives us a grand total of twenty-three thousand 



202 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Vast Expense of Wars of Europe between 1688 and 1815. 

three hundred and thirty millions of dollars as the 
cost of wars in which Great Britain was concern- 
ed during that connparatively short period. Let 
us, however, make every allowance for an over- 
estimate, and call it twenty thousand millions. 
How much would this sum do towards educating 
the world? If w^e estimate the present population 
of the globe at eight hundred millions, there will 
be of this number two hundred millions, of an age 
suitable for attending school. An average of 
eighty pupils would give two millions five hundred 
thousand schools for the w^hole world. Twenty 
thousand millions of dollars divided among these 
would give each eight thousand. Three thousand 
dollars of this would be enough to purchase and 
improve twenty acres of land, to erect a house 
sufficient to accommodate the school and the 
teacher's family, and to provide suitable appara- 
tus for illustrating the simpler principles of chemis- 
try and experimental philosophy. Five thousand 
dollars would still remain to each school, which, 
if invested at an interest of six per cent., would 
yield three hundred dollars a year. Thus, the wars 
of Europe, for the brief period of only a hundred 
and odd years, have cost an amount of money suf- 
ficient to establish popular schools on the most libe- 
ral scale throughout the whole world, and to sup- 
ply them with suitable instruction to the end of 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 203 



An equal sum would educate the whole world to the end of time. 

time ! Truly, when ambition and revenge are to 
be gratified, when tyranny is to be supported, 
when the human race is to be slaughtered by mil- 
hons, when the demon of war is to be unchained, 
and all the arts of mischief and destruction which 
he has devised, are to be brought into operation, — 
there is no want of funds to carry such schemes 
into effect. But when it is a question of elevating 
man to his proper place in the scale of mental and 
moral being, and thus augmenting his happiness 
beyond all calculation, the eyes of nations are sud- 
denly opened to behold their poverty, economy be- 
comes the first of national duties, and Government, 
from an excessive regard for the people's money, 
refuses to provide for the people's most important 
interests. 

How long shall this ill-judged parsimony in the 
support of schools continue to be practised by us, 
and be permitted to remain as a blot and stain 
upon our national escutcheon 1 That a more libe- 
ral compensation to schoolmasters is essential to 
an efiicient education of the people, is generally ad- 
mitted. It has now been shown how this object 
can be accomplished, and that at a comparatively 
early date, by the exercise of a moderate share of 
liberality and clear-sightedness in the General and 
State Governments. Will the nation authorise the 
necessary expenditure ?— an expenditure, be it re- 



204 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Earnest Appeal for a more liberal Policy on this Matter. 

membered, though large in itself, yet really small in 
comparison with our resources as a nation; and the 
vast objects to be secured by it. 'Tis an outlay of 
money, not for the gratification of ambition, not 
for the butchery of mankind, not for any of those 
sinister ends which are so often at the bottom of 
laws apparently patriotic, — but to elevate the peo- 
ple and multiply their enjoyments ; to diffuse know- 
ledge and promote virtue ; to confirm and perpe- 
tuate liberty ; an outlay, too, which, if there be any 
force in an argument urged at some length in the 
first chapter of this work, will be returned more 
than fourfold into her lap. And force there must be 
in that argument, unless it can be shown that up to 
a certain point education may be useful in pro- 
moting the pecuniary interests of a country, but 
that, beyond that point, it is not available for the 
same purpose, — which is an obvious absurdity. 
And even if it were not, it would be a subject of 
endless dispute to determine where the separating 
line was, and as impossible to settle as any frivo- 
lous question that ever tasked the scholastic acu- 
men of the dark ages. Let this Nation, then, weigh 
well her responsibility in this matter, and decide 
the momentous question whether or not her popu- 
lar schools shall be of the right stamp, according 
to an enlightened perception of sound policy, and 
a just sense of moral obligation. 



205 



CHAPTER V. 



BOOKS, CABINETS, AND APPARATUS— LOCATION 
AND ARCHITECTURE OF SCHOOL HOUSES. 



Aversion of Children to Study — Knowledge the natural Food of 
the Mind — Misdirected Love of Knowledge the Occasion of 
the Fall of Man — Pleasures of Knowledge exemplified in the 
Cases of Archimedes and Sir Isaac Newton — Solution of the 
apparent Contradiction involved in the general Aversion to 
Study and the innate Love of Knowledge — Attributable to the 
Want of good School-Books and the Prevalence of bad Me- 
thods of Instruction — Any other Explanation would impugn 
the Wisdom and Goodness of God — Decision of Reason on 
this Point — Testimony of Experience — Various Cases referred 
to — Letter of a Young Man mentioned by Mr. Combe — 
Branches of Learning pursued in German Boarding-Schools 
— The Teacher the Friend of his Pupils — Inspection and 
Explanation of Machinery — Pedestrian Excursions into the 
Country — Last several Weeks — Pupils required to write Jour- 
nals — The Author's own Practice while Principal of the Edge- 
hill School — Its Results — Improvements made in School-Books 
of late Years — Higher Improvements needed — Difficulty of 
preparing Text- Books of a proper Character — ^Requires a high 
Order of Talent and great Learning and Experience — Gene- 
ral Principles on which all School-Books should be constructed 
— Class-Books now in use compared with this Standard — 
Verbal Instruction instead of real — Philosophy of the Infant 
Mind should be studied — The Leadings of Nature followed — 
Lessons on Objects — Biographies— Stories of Real Life — Im- 

18 



206 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



Aversion of Children to Study. Knowledge the Food of the Mind. 

portanee of Truth — Reading — Books on Natural History and 
cognate Sciences — Misapprehension guarded against — Mis- 
cellaneous Library — Of what Classes of Works to be composed 
— Cabinets of Natural History — Chemical and Philosophical 
Apparatus — Influence of these Aids — Location and Architec- 
ture of School-houses — Objects of Importance — Present De- 
fects — Improvements recommended. 

The books, cabinets, and apparatus suitable for 
the use of common schools constitute an import- 
ant question to be considered in forming a general 
system of education for the people. The aversion 
of children to study has long been proverbial. Yet 
knowledge is the natural food of the mind. The 
soul craves it as instinctively as a new-born infant 
desires the milk that nourishes its tender frame. 
It was the desire of knowledge, misdirected and 
stimulated to an undue degree by an artful master 
of the human heart, that 

" Brought death into the world, and all our wo, 
With loss of Eden." 

And the pursuit of knowledge, which always 
yields a calm satisfaction, when prosecuted upon 
principles which do not violate the laws of our 
intellectual being, is sometimes attended with a de- 
light as intense as that which accompanies a sud- 
den influx of wealth, a successful canvass for high 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 207 

Pleasures of Knowledge. Cause of Aversion to Studj'. 

office, or a brilliant military victory. Witness the 
almost frantic exultation of Archimedes on the 
discovery of a method for testing the purity of the 
golden crown of Hiero; and the still more remark- 
able manifestation of delight in the great Newton, 
when, on verifying his theory of gravitation, as he 
approached the end of his calculations and saw 
that his abstract ratiocination was about to be con- 
firmed by the results of observation, the intensity 
of this pleasure deprived him of all power over the 
nerves of motion, and he was obliged to call in the 
aid of another hand to complete the operation. 

Can the aversion to study alluded to above, and 
this innate love of knowledge, be reconciled with 
each other ? The two views would seem to in- 
volve a palpable contradiction ; yet they are sus- 
ceptible of a "satisfactory solution. The true rea- 
son why study is not generally a source of plea- 
sure to the young will be found, unless I greatly 
err, in the want of school-books prepared on sound 
philosophical principles, and the prevalence of 
those unphilosophical methods of instruction, which 
have arisen out of the employment of ignorant and 
inexperienced teachers. The soul cries after know- 
ledge, and lifts up its voice for understanding ; and 
its importunities are answered with words, words, 
words — vox et prcBterea nihil It asks for bread, 
and it receives air. 



208 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Our Faculties adapted to Learning. Decision of Reason. 

Any other explanation, it seems to me, would 
be an impugning of both the wisdom and good- 
ness of the Creator. He has implanted in the hu- 
man soul an ardent thirst for knowledge. He has 
endowed it with capacities fitted to rise from ob- 
ject to object, and to range from system to sys- 
tem, in an endless search after truth, and an eter- 
nal approximation towards the Source of Truth. 
He has expressly declared in his Word that it is 
not good for the soul to be without knowledge ; 
and, if the principles of analogy, and the earnest 
longings of the soul itself, nay, if various not ob- 
scure passages in the Sacred Scriptures, afford 
ground for a judgment, the pursuit of knowledge, 
— the everlasting study of the works and ways of 
God, — will form the principal employment and 
happiness of eternity. And can these glorious 
truths be reconciled with the wisdom and benevo- 
lence of such a mental constitution as necessarily 
makes the act of learning a mere drudgery and 
weariness — an object of disgust and hatred 1 Rea- 
son, speaking from the temple of Truth, where she 
is the presiding divinity, utters an emphatic nega- 
tive. The healthy and assured growth of the 
mind, the mastery over general principles, and 
the growing ability to apply them successfully in 
the investigation of truth and the attainment of 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 209 

Testimony of Experience. Various Examples. 

knowledge, cannot but yield a pleasure pure, sa- 
tisfying, and durable. 

What says Experience ? Her testimony, when 
fairly given, is equally clear and decisive. Of this 
any one may easily satisfy himself by entering the 
school of an instructor who understands the me- 
chanism of the human mind, and adapts his in- 
structions to the principles of its structure. I have 
seen the attention of mere children as steadily 
fixed, and their interest as warmly excited, in re- 
ceiving elementary instructions on the dry subject 
of Latin Grammar, as they could have been in 
listening to the graphic details of some interesting 
story. I have seen the attention of a class of over 
thirty lads kept up for more than an hour, without 
the least appearance of weariness in a single in- 
stance, by a recitation in Sallust. There are, in 
fact, probably few persons who have not beheld 
how the young, when a skilful instructor has been 
communicating new truths to them in an intel- 
ligible manner, have hung upon his hps, and 
drunk in his words, as the thirsty earth imbibes 
the refreshing shower. A distinguished mem- 
ber of the editorial profession informed me that, 
when engaged in teaching, in his younger days, 
he had a class of young ladies in Paley's Na- 
tural Theology. He was unable at first to ex- 
cite any interest in it; and the class contmued to 

J8* 



210 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

German Boarding-schools. Branches taught in them. 

complain of its dryness, till he hit upon the plan of 
presenting sensible illustrations of its principles, 
when suddenly Paley became the most popular 
and fascinating study in the school ; and most even 
of the other pupils, though dismissed and at liberty 
to go home, regularly remained to listen to the re- 
citation on that author. 

A young gentleman, mentioned by Mr. Combe, 
in his Lectures on Education, in writing from 
Cassel to his friend in Edinburgh, presents the fol- 
lowing lively and instructive picture of the Ger- 
man boarding-schools. "In German boarding- 
schools," he says, " natural history is a prominent 
object of pursuit, and the boys are instructed in 
the outhnes of Zoology, Ornithology, Entomology, 
and Mineralogy. This, I believe, is a branch of 
education never taught in seminaries of the same 
description in Britain ; but it is devoured by the 
learners on the continent with the utmost avidity. 
There the teacher is not an object of fear , but the 
friend of his pupils. He takes them, about once 
a fortnight, to visit some manufactory in the neigh- 
bourhood, where they are generally received with 
kindness, and are conveyed through the whole 
building by the owners, who seem to have plea- 
sure in pointing out the uses of the various parts 
of the machinery, and in explaining to their juve- 
nile visiters the different operations that are car- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 2n 



Examination of Manufactories. Pedestrian Excursions. 

ried on. Suppose, for example, that an expedition 
is undertaken to a paper-mill ; the boys begin their 
scrutiny by inspecting the rags in the condition in 
which they are at first brought in ; then they are 
made to remark the processes of cutting them, 
of forming the paste, of sizing the paper, &c., with 
the machinery by which all this is executed. On 
their return, they are required to write out an ac- 
count of the manufactory, and of the operations 
performed in it, and of the manufactured article. 

" During the summer months, pedestrian excur- 
sions are undertaken, extending to a period of per- 
haps two, three, or four weeks. Every thing worthy 
of attention is pointed out to the boys as they go 
along ; and deviations are made on all sides, for 
the purpose of inspecting every manufactory, old 
castle, or other remarkable objects in the neigh- 
bourhood. Minerals, plants, and insects are col- 
lected as they proceed, and thus they begin early 
to appreciate and enjoy the beauties of external 
nature. If they happen to be travelling in the 
mountainous districts of the Hartz, they descend 
into the mines, and see the methods of excavatins: 
the ore, working the shafts, and ventilating and 
draining the mine. Ascending again to the sur- 
face, they become acquainted with the machinery 
by which the minerals are brought up, the pro- 
cesses of separating the ore from the sulphur, and 



212 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

The Effect of these Journeys beneficial on Mind and Body. 

the silver from the lead, and the mode in which 
the former metal is coined into money. 

" Having become familiar with these operations, 
the boys next, perhaps, visit the iron works, and 
here a new scene of gratification is opened up to 
their faculties. The furnaces, the principles of 
the different kinds of bellows, the methods of cast- 
ing the iron and forming the moulds, — every thing, 
in short, is presented to their senses, and fully ex- 
pounded to them. In like manner, they are taken 
to the salt works, and manufactories of glass, 
porcelain, acids, alkalies, and other chemical bo- 
dies, with which that part of Germany abounds. 
If any mineral springs be in the neighbourhood, 
these are visited, and the nature and properties of 
the waters explained. In short, no opportunity is 
neglected, by which additions to their knowledge 
may be made. This knowledge, too, is of a 
kind that remains indelibly written on their me- 
mory, and that is often recalled in after life with 
pleasure and satisfaction. 

" These journeys not only have a beneficial 
effect on the mind, but also conduce, in no small 
degree, to the growth and consolidation of the 
body. They are performed by short and easy 
stages so as not to occasion fatigue. 

" On their return home, the boys write an ac- 
count of their travels, in which they describe the 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 213 



Boys required to write an Account of them. 



nature of the country through which they have 
passed, and its various productions, minerals, and 
manufactures. Tliis is corrected and improved 
by the teacher. The minerals and plants which 
have been collected, serve at school to illustrate 
the lessons. The boys also go through a regular 
course of study, and receive lessons in religion, 
geography, French, and the elements of geometry. 
They are taught also the elements of astronomy ; 
not merely the abstract particulars generally given 
in courses of geography in Britain, relative to the 
moon's distance, the diameter and period of revo- 
lution of the earth, and the like, but also the rela- 
tive positions of the principal constellations. The 
figure of cubes, cones, octagons, pyramids, and 
other geometrical figures, are impressed upon the 
minds of the junior boys by pieces of wood, cut in 
the proper shapes. Latin is taught to those who 
particularly desire it. Poles are erected in the 
garden for gymnastics, and boys receive every 
encouragement to take muscular exercise." 

I offer no apology for the length of this ex- 
tract, because, apart from its interesting statements 
of fact, it shows how much pleasure the pursuit of 
knowledge affords, when things are learned instead 
of words, and the faculties of observation and 
reflection are called into active exercise ; and be- 
cause,- — I may perhaps be pardoned the vanity of 



214 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

The Author's practice while Principal of the Edgehill School. 

saying, — it confirms the wisdom of what I was 
myself in the constant habit of doing in my con- 
duct of the Edgehill School. The same principle 
was there adopted, though it was not carried out 
to the full extent described above. The pupils 
were always, during the summer months, and 
sometimes in the whiter, taken once or twice on 
an excursion of fifteen to twenty miles, in the 
course of which the most interesting objects were 
sought out, their attention was directed to a minute 
examination of them, they were required to take 
notes of their observations, and, on their return, a 
full description in writing of all they had seen, and 
of all that had happened, was exacted of each one. 
Whenever any day of extraordinary interest had 
passed, such as the Fourth of July, Christmas, 
New Year's, or the College Commencement, it 
was usual to require a descriptive composition 
on it from the whole school. This also was fre- 
quently the case with respect to the ordinary holi- 
days, w^hen they had been wandering abroad un- 
der the care of their teachers. These were found 
to be among the most improving as well as pleas- 
ing exercises within the range of school duties. 

Reason and experience, then, unite in declaring 
that there is nothing in study inherently displeasing 
and irksome to the young ; but that, on the con- 
trary, the pursuit of knowledge on principles in 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 215 

The Acquisition of Knowledge may always be a Source of Pleasure. 

harmony with our mental constitution, is eminently 
fitted to afford pleasure as well as profit. Good 
class-books, wise modes of conveying truth to the 
mind, a due intermixture of experiment and sen- 
sible illustration with study, and the possession by 
the teacher of copious knowledge, a ready imagi- 
nation, and a lively interest in and sympathy with 
his pupils, will always make the school-room a 
pleasant place, and the acquisition of knowledge 
a never-failing spring of gratification. 

I am not of the number of those who hold the 
modern empiricism that learning may be made a 
mere pastime. It is the law of the Creator that 
nothing really valuable can be gained without 
labour. Nor am I. disposed to deny that, with 
perhaps some changes for the worse, many and 
important improvements have been made of late 
years in school-books.* But, notwithstanding this 
admission, it is clear that this class of works has 
not hitherto enlisted that amount of learning, that 



* Mr. Emerson's four class-books, designed to teach reading 
in common schools, are decidedly the best for that purpose that 
have ever fallen under my notice. They proceed upon the phi- 
losophical principle of the progressive developement of the infant 
faculties ; and are really very great improvements on the books 
formerly in use. 



216 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION, 



School-books. High Order of Talent required to write them. 



reach of experience, and that order of talent, which 
are essential to the production ci such books as 
are needed. Nothing is easier than to write 
school-books of a certain kind ; but such as will 
stand the test of sound criticism, and commend 
themselves to the judgment of the truly wise, are 
extremely difficult of execution. To combine the 
requisite brevity with just that degree of fulness 
which is necessary to excite and gratify the ar- 
dent imagination of the young, to be simple with- 
out degenerating into puerility, to seize upon the 
most important truths and the fittest mode of 
communicating them, and, above all, to conduct 
the learner always by judicious gradations, from 
the simplest elements of knowledge to the sublime 
revelations of science and the eternal principles of 
morality, — these constitute a labour that may well 
task the powers of the most gifted and best fur- 
nished minds. 

There are a few general principles which every 
writer and compiler of class-books for the use of 
common schools, ought to take for his guide, and 
of which he should never for a moment lose sight. 
First, the subject, the thoughts, and the lan- 
guage, should be level to the comprehension of 
the persons for whom the works are intended. 
Secondly, the utmost pains should be taken to im- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 217 

Principles on which to be prepared. Examination of Books now in use. 

part to every portion of them a high moral tone, 
or at least to exclude every thing in the smallest 
degree immoral in its tendency. Thirdly, every 
page, and even every paragraph, ought to be made 
to convey some useful knowledge. And fourthly, 
facts alone should be introduced, to the entire ex- 
clusion of fiction of every kind. 

Will the class-books now^ in use in our common 
schools stand the test of an examination on these 
principles'? Alas, it is not many years since that 
every one of them was violated upon nearly every 
page of these works; and the old books still main- 
tain a good portion of the ground against those 
prepared upon a somewhat improved plan. Books 
consisting of extracts, elegant in themselves, but 
altogether incomprehensible to young children, 
were universally, and still are to a considerable 
extent, placed in the hands of the learner, as soon 
as he had achieved a doubtful conquest over the 
readiug lessons in the spelling-book. Nor was this 
all, or even the worst. Many of the extracts were 
immoral in their tendency, inasmuch as they were 
calculated to feed the sentiments of pride, ambi- 
tion, and revenge, and to excite an admiration of 
war, if not a taste for it, by the praises lavished 
upon the so called heroism of some of the foulest 
and most wholesale murderers the earth ever pro- 
duced ; — the Alexanders, the Caesars, and the 

19 



218 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Iiistmction is verbal. Should be real. Curiosity of Children. 

Napoleons, who burnt incense only at the shrine 
of their own ambition, whose best deeds sprung 
from unworthy motives, who perpetrated, without 
compunction, or at least without hesitation, the 
blackest crimes, and who stopped not at the 
slaughter of millions of human beings, in order 
that they might gratify the nefarious ambition of 
treading upon the necks of subjugated empires. 

One of the most crying defects of school-books 
is, that the instruction they convey is verbal in- 
stead of real; they deal in words rather than 
things. No fault can be more fatal to the sohd 
progress of the pupil, or more likely to give him a 
distaste for study. It is a sin against nature, a di- 
rect warfare upon the order of Providence. What 
do we observe in children, if we take the trouble 
to watch their infant movements 1 An ardent, an 
irrepressible thirst for examining every object that 
falls in their way. The world is all fresh to them, 
and the feeling of wonder is predominant in their 
minds. When they get hold of a new thing, they 
examine it with all their senses, — they look at it, 
handle it, taste it, smell it, and are not satisfied till 
after repeated examinations. And many a time 
has a poor urchin, condemned to pore over un- 
meaning or incomprehensible sentences for hours 
together, been flogged for obeying this law^ of his 
nature, when the master was infinitely more de- 
serving of chastisement than the scholar. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 219 



Nature to be consulted. Lessons on Objects. Biographies and Real Stories. 

It is the humble business of the educationist to 
consult nature, and to follow her leadings in train- 
ing the youthful faculties. Lessons on objects are, 
therefore, the first that should engage the attention 
of young learners. An excellent little work under 
this title has been prepared by Dr. Mayo, of Eng- 
land, for the use of teachers. These lessons teach 
things primarily, and words incidentally. But 
they teach even words more effectively than that 
system in which word-teaching is the principal 
and not the accessory, because each word be- 
comes inseparably associated with the object or 
quality of which it is the sign, and therefore con- 
veys a real meaning. Dr. Mayo's work would 
furnish hints, and in part materials, for the con- 
struction of an early reading-book in schools. It 
would be no objection to such a book, that its con- 
tents had been made familiar to the pupils in a dif- 
ferent way ; on the contrary, this would be an ad- 
vantage. Children are always delighted to find 
in books what they already know. Hence it would 
be well if the first lessons in reading could always 
be made to convey ideas before familiar to their 
minds. 

A small book, consisting of short biographies of 
men eminent for their virtues and usefulness, and 
written in a familiar, sprightly style, and of sim- 
ple moral stories from real life, would be equally 
entertaining and useful in learning to read. I in- 



220 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Importance of Truth. School-books should deal in Facts. Selections. 

sist upon the stories being real occurrences, and 
upon the biographies being prepared with the 
most scrupulous regard to accuracy. It is a great 
advantage, when a teacher can say to a child in 
putting a new work into his hands, " This book 
contains nothing that is not true." Truth is to the 
character what the mainspring is to a watch; it is, 
by pre-eminence, the hinging virtue. It is, more- 
over, congenial to the mind. A mind soundly con- 
stituted, and well disciplined, will always prefer it 
to fiction, even for the pleasure it affords. And 
what a preponderating weight is given to it by the 
consideration that facts, however and whenever 
obtained, when they are once laid by in the me- 
mory, are always there, ready to be drawn forth 
for use, as occasion requires. No opportunity, 
therefore, should be omitted, no means neglected, 
for exciting a love of truth in the youthful bosom, 
and inducing a practical regard for it in all the 
transactions of subsequent life. As an appropriate 
companion to this, a volume containing judicious 
and interesting selections from voyages and travels, 
would form a valuable work. 

Well written works on natural history, botany, 
physiology, and anatomy, would be as useful in 
learning to read as any others, and they would be 
attended with the additional advantage of convey- 
ing into the mind a large fund of various and im» 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 221 



Reading-books on Natural History and other Subjects. Works required. 



portant information. They should, however, al- 
ways be illustrated by real specimens when attain- 
able, and at all events by good engravings, 
coloured after nature, and all upon the same 
scale. 

To carry out the views recommended in the 
second chapter of this work, several school-books, 
on entirely new subjects, would have to be written. 
The four principles already laid down, it is be- 
lieved, constitute a safe and sufficient code for the 
preparation of class-books on any subject. 

A word or two may be necessary here in expla- 
nation, to guard against misapprehension. In what 
has been said on existing school-books, I trust I 
have not sinned against justice, nor been wanting 
in hberality. Recent improvements have been 
freely admitted, and some of them pointed out and 
specially commended ; and 1 would now add, more 
distinctly, that text-books on some subjects are al- 
ready in existence, as nearly perfect as things hu- 
man can usually hope to become. Besides text- 
books on all the subjects taught, skilfully prepared 
on principles adapted to the juvenile mind, there 
ought to be in every school, for the use of the mas- 
ter and scholars, a well selected miscellaneous li- 
brary of a few hundred volumes, chiefly on the 
subjects of religion, education, history, biography, 
ao-riculture, ceconomics, the mechanic arts, and 
19* 



222 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

School Libraries. Cabinets. Philosophical Apparatus. 

the natural sciences. Small cabinets of natural 
history, including specimens in mineralogy? bota- 
ny, ornithology, and zoology, might be collected 
by the teachers and pupils themselves, at little or 
no expense ; to which additions might be constant- 
ly making, by means of exchanges with other 
schools. It is desirable that the principal schools 
should be gradually furnished with such cheap and 
simple apparatus as will serve to exhibit the more 
important principles and interesting phenomena of 
chemistry and natural philosophy. The influence 
of these various aids to learning could not be other- 
wise than beneficial in a variety of respects. They 
would promote a taste for reading, excite a spirit 
of inquiry, direct the attention of pupils to things 
instead of names, blend amusement with instruc- 
tion, enlarge the circle of thought, and lay a 
broader foundation for continued self-improvement 
in subsequent life. 

The location and architecture of school-houses 
are matters of considerable importance, w-hich 
have not hitherto received the attention they de- 
serve. These edifices have generally been con- 
structed with a principal reference to economy, 
and with an almost total disregard of taste and con- 
venience. They are often placed in the bleakest 
situation in the whole district, without a tree, a 
flower, or scarcely a blade of grass, to relieve the 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 223 

Location of School-Houses. Architecture. Inattention to these Matters. 

eye, or any thing to protect them from the chilling 
sweep of the winter's winds, and the glare and heat 
of the summer's suns. They are almost univer- 
sally forbidding objects to the sight, and ill-ar- 
ranged, ill-ventilated, and comfortless as places of 
study. Now there is utterly a fault in this matter. 
The scenes and phenomena of external nature — 
the earth, with its beauties of mountain and valley 
■ — of stream and cataract — of beast and bird, and 
tree and flower, and the boundless heavens, with 
their ever shining garniture — do not, indeed, exert 
that power over the mind and heart that the so- 
ciety of human beings does ; yet their influence is 
of so much importance that it is not the part of 
wisdom to overlook it in the education of the 
young. Such a position, therefore, should be se- 
lected for the site of a house of education as com- 
bines the greatest number of natural beauties and 
advantages possible under the circumstances ; and 
then the hand of taste should be employed to aug- 
ment and enrich them, so as to invest the whole 
place with a sweet and attractive air. The build- 
ing itself ought to be constructed with a prime re- 
gard to neatness, convenience, and health; so that 
there should be nothing unsightly in its aspect — 
nothing uncomfortable, or prejudicial to health in 
its arrangements — nothing, in short, repulsive or 
chilling in its whole appearance and structure. It 



224 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

School-Houses should be large enough for School and Master's Farajly, 

is commonly the case, in Prussia, that the same 
building accommodates both the school and the 
teacher's family. This is probably the best ar- 
rangement, and it would be desirable, if possible, 
gradually to introduce it into our own practice. 



225 



CHAPTER VI. 

GENERA L ORG ANIZATION— OBSTACLES— EN- 
COURAGEMENTS. 



A g-ood Org-anic Constitution necessary to the efficiency of a sys- 
tem of Popular Education — A Consideration of the Objects to 
be accompUshed by it necessary to its Formation — Various 
Officers essential — Their Services should be remunerated — 
Organization should be as simple as possible — Superintendent 
of Public Instruction — County Commissioners — Trustees for 
Townships — School Inspectors — Their various Duties — Means 
for securing Regular Attendance of Pupils, and Fidelity in 
Teachers^ — Diffidence with which these Suggestions are made 
— Consideration of Obstacles — Indifference of the People — 
Various Proofs of it — Lagging Legislation — Feebleness of Vo- 
luntary Associations — Periodicals on Education unsupported 
— Difficulty of removing this Indifference — Admitted Costli- 
ness a great Obstacle — Ought not to be — Friends of Educa- 
tion must be content to labour for remote Results — Obstacles 
arising from Points in our Social System, and Traits in our 
National Character — The Lust of Wealth and the Leaven of 
Agitation hinder Reform — Multiplication and Intermingling 
of Religious Sects a Hindrance — Remoteness and Impalpable 
nature of the Benefits to be gained a great Impediment — Our 
duty to provide for Posterity — This duty plainly written on the 
Creator's Plan — Pleasure arising from its Performance — En- 
couragements — Indifference giving way — Much has been al- 
ready accomplished — Formation of Lyceums — Example of 



226 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Organic Constitution of the System. Diversity of Opinion. 

other Countries — Popular Education not a Political Question 
— The Press unanimous in its Favour — Concluding Appeal to 
Statesmen and Legislators. 

It will be in vain for any of our State Govern- 
ments to provide with even princely liberality for 
the instruction and support of popular schools, and 
to prescribe the most comprehensive course of 
study, unless it also gives to its system such an or- 
ganic constitution as will ensure practical efficien- 
cy in its operations. What this general organiza- 
tion should be, is a question on which great diver- 
sity of opinion is likely to exist. On the other 
points discussed in these hints, I not only feel as- 
sured, Gentlemen, that your views will coincide 
with mine, but I have some confidence that I shall 
unite the suffi'ages of a majority of the friends of 
education throughout the country. In reference 
to the question now to be considered, I entertain 
no such hope. A variety of plans might be pro- 
posed, any of which would be efficient for the ob- 
ject in view. It would, therefore, be presumption, 
perhaps, in any one to suppose that an organiza- 
tion according to his particular notions, would be 
the best possible ; certainly I should esteem it as 
such in myself. Nevertheless, I have opinions on 
the subject ; and I should regard my present un- 
dertaking as incomplete, if I withheld them from 
the public. My plan is better suited to a small 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 227 

Objects to be accomplished. Services better rendered when paid for. 

State than to a large one, and I frankly avow that 
I have our own conrimonwealth in my eye, in en- 
tering upon the exposition of it. 

It is well to understand definitely what objects 
we propose to accomplish by this organic consti- 
tution. Clear ideas on this preliminary point will 
afford us essential aid in our subsequent inquiries. 
What, then, are the objects contemplated? The 
great object is the sound and thorough education 
of all the children in the state. But this must b^ 
reached through the attainment of subordinate ob- 
jects. The chief of these are to secure, first, faith- 
fulness in the teacher; secondly, a regular attend- 
ance on the part of pupils ; thirdly, fideUty in the 
disbursement of the public money appropriated to 
this cause ; and lastly, full returns to the Legisla- 
ture, showing the annual results of the system 
adopted. These ends can be attained only through 
the agency of various state, county, and township 
officers, and certain statutory enactments. 

Services of every description are, as a general 
thing, more cheerfully and faithfully rendered, 
when paid for. Let us start, then, with this pos- 
tulate, that all the officers employed are to be 
adequately remunerated, either by salary, or by 
per diem allowances. We shall find our account 
in this, in whatever aspect it may be regarded. 
Let us also lay down another principle for our 



228 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



Simplicity in the organic Law recommended. Four Classes of Officers. 



guidance, viz. that the machinery of the system 
should be characterized by as much simpHcity as 
is compatible with its efficient action. That of 
Prussia is too complex, too much intertwisted, 
too military. One could easily infer from its mul- 
tiform structure that the country where it prevails 
is familiar with standing armies. 

I propose the appointment of four classes of 
officers, viz. a Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
tion, a Commissioner of Common Schools for 
each county, three Trustees for every township, 
and two Inspectors for each school. The Super- 
intendent to be chosen by the legislature for the 
term of three or five years, and to receive a liberal 
salary, both for the purpose of giving respectability 
to the office, and of securing in it the services of 
men of talent and character. A term of years is 
proposed, to guard against the consequences that 
might result from the fluctuations of political par- 
ties. Education has nothing to do directly with 
politics, and important offices connected with it 
ought not to be made dependent on the breath of 
political favour or enmity. 

The School Inspectors to be chosen by ballot 
in each district, the Trustees for townships to be 
elected as the other township officers are, and the 
Commissioner for each county to be chosen by 
ballot by all the Trustees in the county, assembled 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 229 

School Inspectors. Township Trustees. County Commissioners. 

for that purpose, and always selecting one of their 
own number. All these officers to be paid so 
much per day for their time while actually en- 
gaged in the public service. 

It should be made the duty of the Inspectors, 
from the performance of which nothing should 
ever be permitted to deter them, to visit and ex- 
amine thoroughly the schools in their respective 
districts, at least once a month, and receive from 
the master the monthly report of attendance, be- 
haviour, and progress of the pupils. In like man- 
ner it should be made the duty of the Trustees to 
visit and examine all the schools in their respective 
townships at least once a quarter, and to meet as 
often as that for the purpose of receiving reports 
from the School Inspectors. The Trustees in their 
turn to report to the County Commissioners. 

The County Commissioners to constitute a Board 
of Education, to convene semi-annually, of which 
the Superintendent should"be, ex officio, President. 
Each Commissioner to present at these meetings 
a report for his own county, to be passed into the 
hands of the Superintendent. It should be made 
the duty of this Board to examine candidates 
for the situation of teachers, and to consult on 
the general interests of education throughout the 
state* 

The duties of the Superintendent of Public In- 

20 



230 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Superintendent. Punctual Attendance of Pupils. Fidelity of Teachers. 

struction would be multifarious and responsible, the 
least of which would be his annual reports to the 
body by whom he was elected. He would be re- 
quired to take a general oversight of all the 
schools, to visit once a year every county in the 
state, to be instant, in season and out of season, in 
his efforts to keep alive and increase the interest 
of the people, and to labour unremittingly to dis- 
seminate information and to infuse a spirit of ac- 
tivity into the whole system. In short, he must 
be the heart of the system, whence a genial cur- 
rent of life and vigour shall flow to the most dis- 
tant members. 

To insure the punctual and regular attendance 
of the pupils, the principles both of hope and of 
fear might perhaps be appealed to with propriety. 
Some slight bounty might be offered to the child 
who should not miss a day from school throughout 
the year, except from sickness; and the parent 
might forfeit his title to any benefit from the dis- 
tribution of the public money, by keeping his child 
at home beyond a specified proportion of the whole 
time. 

For the encouragement of teachers, and to in- 
sure their fidelity and continued self-improvement, 
biennial or triennial examinations might be held, 
and some distinctions conferred upon those who 
are most deserving. 

I am prepared to have some of these sugges- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 231 

This Plan may not be the best. An efficient Organization practicable. 

lions received and treated as visionary, and others 
rejected as inapracticable. If they are all dis- 
carded, and something better proposed in their 
stead, I pledge myself that I will abandon them 
Vi^ithout regret, and be among the first to hail the 
substitute with rejoicing. The organization pro- 
posed would necessarily require some modifica- 
tions, if adopted in its general principles in a large 
state ; and the establishment and successful opera- 
tion of teachers' seminaries would also make some 
changes necessary. 

These views are submitted, not dogmatically, 
but with unfeigned diffidence. Where there is 
so much room for difference of opinion, there is 
greater latitude of error, and the probabilities in 
favour of the correctness of any given opinions are 
diminished. The proper adjustment and balancing 
of all the parts of a general system of popular edu- 
cation, so as to secure complete efficiency, is a 
work requiring deep wisdom ; yet experience has 
shown that it is altogether within the range of pos- 
sibilities. Let the attempt but be made in earnest 
by any state, and prosecuted with ardour, and it 
requires not the word of a prophet to foretell that it 
will be completely successful, and that its success 
will be attended with consequences good in them- 
selves, and most benign in their influence. 

Is there any probability that such a system of 



232 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Will such a Bysterri bo adopted ? First Obstacle llie People's Indifference. 

popular education as I have attempted to trace out 
in the foregoing pages, or any thing approaching 
to it, will ever be adopted by the several states of 
our confederacy 'i It naust be confessed that the 
prospect is not of the most cheering kind ; and yet 
there are encouragements enough to keep out de- 
spair, and even to authorize the hope that the day 
will come, when this consummation shall be real- 
ized. The vast importance of a comprehensive 
education of the people, and the indispensable ne- 
cessity of improved methods of instruction, are 
generally admitted. Why, then, are not schools 
universally established upon a proper basis, and 
maintained with a liberality commensurate with 
their acknowledged importance? To consider the 
obstacles in the way of so desirable a result, and 
the encouragements to hope that it may ultimately 
be secured, will be the object of the concluding 
portion of this work. 

1. The difficulty that first rises to the thoughts in 
considering this subject, and the one perhaps of 
most formidable import, though negative in its 
character, is tiic indiUcronce of the people in rela- 
tion to it. This indillbrcnce is deep-seated, and 
exists to an almost incredible extent. 

Where is the state within the limits of this na- 
tion, whose citizens are sufficiently alive to the 
value of education, to demandof their law-makers a 



HINTS ON POPIIT-AR ICDUCATION. 2S3 



Various Proofs of tliis Indillbrencc. Voliinliiry AHSociiitioiiH IniiRuiMli. 

system adequate to their wants? Not one such 
can be named. lOven in Massaciiusetts, the best 
educated state in the union, the sum annually ex- 
pended on common schools is, as you have seen, 
only a little more than one-fourth of what has been 
siiown to be indispensable to the support of such 
schools as we need. In Pennsylvania, where a 
system of common schools, devised with wisdom, 
and liighly benoficiMl in its results, has been for 
several years in oj)cration, more thnn one-fourth 
of the people still refuse to accede to i1. In the 
legislature of New Jersey, at its last session, only 
some half dozen votes could be obtained in favour 
of a proposition to imj)rove our common schools. 

What is the usual history of those voluntary so- 
cieties which are from time to time formed for the 
promotion of popular education ? They arc got 
up with considerable spirit ; they give promise of 
salutary fruits; they languish for a few years 
through a sickly and ever-waning existence; and 
then sink beneath the waves of oblivion, to be fol- 
lowed by others destined to a like fate. The Ame- 
rican Lyceum might be made a mighty instru- 
ment of good to this cause ; yet it is compara- 
tively inelllcient for want of that support which a 
moderate share of general interest in education 
could not fail to give it. 

Do periodicals on education meet with any bet- 
20* 



234 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Failure of Periodicals on Education. Indifference its Cause. 

ter fate? Their career is still more brief and in- 
glorious. Within the short space of seven years, 
no less than seven works of this kind have been 
started, which have scarcely survived their birth ; 
while the eighth, the Annals of Education, has, till 
within a year or two past, struggled on through a 
feeble and uncertain existence. The Common 
School Assistant, a monthly newspaper, edited by 
Mr. J. Orville Taylor, has been published for about 
two years, and is said to have an extensive circu- 
lation. Beyond these two, I know of none pub- 
lished at the present time in any part of the coun- 
try. Is this the way in which the people of the 
United States display their interest in a given 
subject ? No, indeed. Political papers are circu- 
lated by thousands ; religious periodicals by hun- 
dreds; law, medical, and literary journals, tem- 
perance, agricultural, and abolition papers, each 
by fifties or by dozens. Periodicals devoted to 
education alone, of all others, perish and are for- 
gotten after a few months' struggle for life, and 
the loss of some hundreds of dollars out of the 
pockets of their conductors. 

But why multiply proofs of the prevalent indif- 
ference to education? Alas ! their name is legion. 
He that runs may read them. Even the interest 
of those who affect to deplore the want of it in 
others is often limited to an occasional sigh, a few 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 335 

How can this Indifference be removed ? Tendencies opposed to it. 

newspaper articles, or an address now and then at 
a popular meeting. This indifference is the main 
obstacle that lies in the way of an efficient reform. 
But the problem is how to remove it. Archbishop 
Whately, in his Lectures on Political Economy, 
argues that a barbarous nation has no tendency 
to civilize itself. Reasoning upon the same prin- 
ciple, the London Quarterly Review endeavours 
to show that an uneducated society has no natural 
tendency to educate itself; that the impulse must 
come from above ; from those who have created 
the want that the others do not feel. It says truly 
that it is impossible for persons of uncultivated and 
torpid minds to know to w^hat an extent education 
exalts, enlarges, and stimulates the understanding; 
how much it raises, refines, and strengthens the 
moral feelings; nor how incalculably it increases 
the happiness of its possessor, and tends to make 
him both independent of the world, and a safe and 
useful member of society. Hence such persons 
will never seek it self-moved. They must be acted 
upon from without, — by those who are impressed 
with a sense of its manifold advantages ; who see 
in it the only means of promoting genuine civiliza- 
tion ; of instilling correct principles and salutary 
habits ; of implanting a love of industry, temper- 
ance, and regularity ; and of stifling whatever is 
repugnant to law, order, and morality. 



236 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Expense of the System an Obstacle. Money could not be better appropriated. 

2. The greatness of the admitted and even avow- 
ed expense of an efficient national education is an 
obstacle of no small magnitude in the way of its 
accomplishment. There is nothing of which our 
legislators generally are so much afraid as of 
voting away money even in small sums, and for 
the best and wisest purposes ; much less will they 
be willing, till instructed in a voice of authority by 
the people themselves, to appropriate it by millions 
for the maintenance of schools. How can the 
people be influenced to move in this matter effect- 
ually 1 Nothing will do it but the most vigorous 
and persevering efforts on the part of those whose 
views are in advance of the times, to disseminate 
light, to rectify error, and to open the eyes of the 
community to the perils of ignorance and the 
blessings of knowledge. 

It would be a noble and even a sublime specta- 
cle to see a great nation, that has already set an 
example to the world of rational liberty and so- 
ber self-government, following up what she has 
achieved bv that which would confirm it to the 
latest posterity, — by a charter of perpetuity, in the 
endowment of popular schools, on a scale worthy 
of herself, and corresponding with their intrinsic 
importance. And to what better, wiser, or more 
useful purpose could the resources indicated in the 
fourth chapter of these Hints be devoted ? Will 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 237 

No Price too great for Education. We must persevere in the Work. 

it be said that the expenditure is enormous ? No 
price is great which is not disproportionate to the 
value of the article purchased. And if we take 
this principle as our guide, we must admit that four 
times the sum asked would be well expended, if so 
much were necessary, to secure the end in view. 
Is it too much to hope that the nation may be 
brought to the point of incurring the needed ex- 
pense? To expect such a result immediately, 
would argue either the blindness of ignorance, or 
the weakness of the enthusiast. But the friends 
of education must be content to labour for a re- 
mote good. They must fix their aims high, and 
proclaim them to the world ; and then buckle on 
the armour of firm resolve and determined perse- 
verance. Let them plant themselves upon the im- 
pregnable and lofty principle, that truth is great and 
will prevail. Let there be no concealment, no dis- 
guise, no deceptive and honied insinuation. " The 
movements and workings of the social system have 
become too deep and potent, to leave room for ope- 
rations of a slender, ambiguous, or insinuating kind. 
We have come to no gentle mood of the world's 
history. This is no hour of leisure and facility and 
soft persuasion. He who dares not speak expli» 
citly and boldly, had better not speak at all. 
Nothing will now avail the cause of truth but the 
courage which truth ought to inspire." If the 



238 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Our Social System in some respects adverse in its Influence. 

necessary boldness be coupled with due discre- 
tion, and sustained by a spirit that shrinks not, 
wavers not, and is not discouraged either by de- 
lays or opposition, it is neither blind, nor weak, 
nor visionary, to indulge the hope that such ex- 
ertions in behalf of our cause will in the end 
prevail. 

3. There are points in our social system, and 
some traits in our national character, which stand 
in the way of the gigantic scheme we are advo- 
cating. The paths of ambition are here open to 
all. The obscure of to-day may be the illustrious 
of to-morrow ; and a single false step in politics 
often leads over a precipice, at whose base present 
realizations and reasonable hopes may be seen 
in scattered and irrecoverable fragments. This 
makes the ambitious aspirant for pubhc favour 
timid, shrinking, and over-cautious as to every one 
of his public acts. It makes those who, by their 
talents, learning, and commanding position, are 
capable of controlling public opinion, the mere 
echoes, nay, almost the slaves, of that very opinion, 
which they ought rather to enlighten and rectify. 
This, it will be seen at once, is an adverse in- 
fluence of tremendous power, especially if it be 
admitted that there is no inherent tendency in an 
uneducated community to educate itself, and that 
the first impulse to that end must come from 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 239 

Several Traits in our national Character opposed to Reform. 

abroad, that is, for the most part, from those very- 
persons, who are afraid to touch the ark from a 
morbid dread of the loss of popularity. 

The lust of wealth, the frenzy of enterprise, 
and the leaven of agitation which has diffused it- 
self through almost the whole mass of society, are 
points each in our national character whose in- 
fluence, as far as it goes, is opposed to a thorough 
reform of our existing systems of popular instruc- 
tion. It is not necessary to go into any lengthened 
analysis of these causes, and to show that their 
effect is essentially such as it is here stated to be; 
their operation lies upon the surface, and may be 
know^n and read of all men. When the sacra auri 
fames — the accursed hunger of gold — has become, 
in the majority of minds, a craving that knows no 
intermission ; when steamboats, railroads, and 
canals, the purchase and sale of lands, the eager 
pursuits of commerce and manufactures, and the 
thousand other modes of rapid accumulation which 
the ingenuity of avarice has devised, form the 
themes that occupy men's thoughts by night and 
by day; and when society is agitated almost to its 
foundations by innumerable exciting causes, — it is 
easy to perceive that it is not the most favourable 
time for those calm investigations and steady ex- 
ertions which are essential to the solid improve- 
ments in education for which we are contending. 



240 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION 

Difference in religious Opinion another Obstacle. 

4. The multiplication and intermingling of reli- 
gious sects in this country constitute another and 
not inconsiderable hindrance to the realization of 
our wishes on this subject. It has already been 
shown that popular education, in order to be of 
any substantial value, must teach the evidences on 
which the religion of the Bible rests its claim to be 
considered a communication from Heaven ; that 
it must communicate what is capital in its doc- 
trines, as well as the main facts of its history; and 
that it must instil into its pupils the principles and 
habits of practical godliness. It is admitted that 
to harmonize the elements of discord so as effec- 
tually to secure this indispensable condition with- 
out calling into activity sectarian prejudices and 
jealousies, is a labour of deep practical wisdom. 
But that it is a work altogether impracticable, can 
hardly be supposed; since it is apparently essential 
to the carrying forward of the great designs of 
Providence, and the introduction of that glorious 
period, the brightest in the world's history, the 
theme of the most impassioned strains of prophecy 
and poetry, when the universal diffusion of know- 
ledge AND HOLINESS shall rcstoro to the moral 
world the lost image of its Maker, and bring back, 
not merely the remembrance, but the enjoyment, 
of the peace and beauty of Eden. 

5. The last in that ill-omened train of impedi- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 241 

Remoteness of the Benefits to be gained a great Impediment. 

ments to which reference will now be made is found 
in the remoteness and the impalpable nature of the 
benefits to be gained by the adoption of the course 
recommended. Mr. Simpson, in his work on the 
Necessity of Popular Education, has placed the 
fallacy and the selfishness of this plea in so strong 
a light, that I must crave indulgence for asking 
your attention to a somewhat lengthened extract. 
" If it were true, as it is not, that we of the pre- 
sent generation shall derive no benefit from the 
progress, nay, even from the commencement of 
this moral revolution, we should be bound, never- 
theless, to effect it, when in the nature of things it 
can only be accomplished by one generation, to 
be fully enjoyed by another. It is a low morahty 
which would recklessly throw our burdens upon 
our successors, to work out their deliverance from 
these as they may, but refuse the slightest sacri- 
fice for their benefit. A succeeding generation 
owes its existence to the present, and has a claim, 
in justice as well as benevolence, to inherit all our 
accumulations of wealth and knowledge, and a 
right to reproach us with a great sin in the Crea- 
tor's sight, if we have selfishly shrunk from the 
duty which he has inscribed on his great plan, that 
one generation shall often sow the seed, that ano- 
ther may gather the harvest. This duty extends 
from the planting of a tree, to the enlightening of 

21 



242 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Our Obligations to Posterity. Self-esteem a Motive to Exertion. 

a people. To decline our share in the naeans of 
the progression of the human race, when we have 
arrived at light enough to show us the way, would 
be a moral prostration which would stigmatise an 
age. 

" A legitimate self-esteem is well entitled here to 
supply its share of motive, and make us proud that, 
in the course of Providence, it has fallen to our 
times to do this great thing ; to preside over the 
culture, assured that our children, and our chil- 
dren's children will gather the increase. Yes, 
there are minds of glorious loftiness, — minds that 
would do a deed to bless mankind, and be content 
to die. Lavoisier waited the moment when a great 
truth should be revealed in the results of a scienti- 
fic process, in which he was intensely engaged, 
when they came to lead him to the scaffold. He 
entreated to have three days granted him to crown 
the great work of the new chemistry. Robespierre 
refused an hour, and, like the caitiff who struck 
down Archimedes, murdered Lavoisier. Heroism 
like this is not now before us ; but I trust there are 
many of my countrymen, who, if it were pro- 
pounded to them, whether their satisfaction w^ould 
be the greater to aid in effecting the glorious 
scheme of education, or to live in another genera- 
tion, and passively taste its fruits, would choose the 
glory of the enterprise, rather than the sweets of 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 243 

Consideration of Encouragements. Popular Intlifterence yielding. 

the result ; and would avow that there is an expan- 
sion of feeling, a dilation of heart, a lofty ambition 
even, in being permitted to be the actors in a work 
to have such consequences in another generation, 
which gives them to live, as it were, in both pe- 
riods, to enjoy alike the springtide and the autumn, 
and, like Abraham, to see the day afar off and be 
glad." 

But amid all that is gloomy in our prospects, 
and disheartening in the obstacles that oppose 
themselves to reform, there are not wanting 
sources of consolation and hope. Nay, the en- 
couragements, when calmly weighed, wi!l be 
found to preponderate over considerations of an 
opposite kind. These encouragements I shall ra- 
ther advert to than discuss; leaving it to you, and 
to others who may honour my work with a peru- 
sal, to follow out the topics suggested with such 
reflections as will naturally arise. 

1. The indifference alluded to as among the 
most formidable obstacles to improved systems of 
popular education, is already giving way to a 
lively, and active, and general interest in the sub- 
ject. Great inroads have been made upon it with- 
in the last few years ; it has been gradually, but 
surely melting away before the efforts to remove 
it, like icebergs beneath the influence of southern 
skies ; and the impulse has been already given, 



244 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Proofs of this. Education a frequent Topic of Conversation. 

which, if no untoward events occur to impede 
the movement, will certainly end in its entire de- 
molition, and the substitution in its place of en- 
lightened zeal and active exertions in the great 
body of the people. We have had abundant proof 
of this in our own state, within the few weeks last 
past, in the numerous and spirited meetings held 
in all parts of our commonwealth for the purpose 
of petitioning the legislature for improvements in 
our common school system. The importance of 
a thorough education of all classes in the commu- 
nity, and the necessity of reforming and extending 
our operations for that end, are becoming frequent 
topics of conversation in those circles and among 
those individuals, where we look for the first move- 
ments in any meditated amelioration of the social 
system. Nor are these topics confined to the con- 
versation of the classes here alluded to; they have 
spread far beyond them. Multitudes of the labour- 
ing classes feel and proclaim the necessity of a 
better education for their children. Would that 
they would rise in their might, and demand it of 
their rulers. On the whole, it must be confessed 
and deplored, that "there remains much land to 
be possessed ;" but Jordan has been passed, the 
walls of Jericho are prostrate, and we are already 
advancing into the heart of the enemy's country. 
Let our watchword be Onward ; let our course 
be marked by prudence ; let our vigilance and our 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 245 

What has been akeacly accomplished a Source of Hope. 

labour be unremitted; and triumph will certainly 
perch upon our banner; and our children and chil- 
dren's children shall reap the harvest we have 
sown. 

2. Much has been already accomplished in va- 
rious sections of the country. To enter into par- 
ticulars in illustration of this point would require 
more space than can be devoted to that purpose, 
though the illustration could not fail to be both in- 
teresting and instructive. I can only refer, there- 
fore, in general terms, to what has been achieved 
in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
Michigan, and several other western states. Go- 
vernors Marcy, Wolf, Ritner, Vance, Mason, 
and others, have imposed a heavy debt of grati- 
tude upon their fellow-citizens, by their zeal in re- 
commending, and their active exertions in urging 
forward, the improvements in their respective 
states ; and they have in this way gained more 
true glory, and done more lasting service to their 
country, than by a long career of military triumphs. 
Long may such men live to infuse their own spirit 
into souls of heavier mould, and to roll along the 
wheels on which are borne the political safety, the 
moral elevation, and the true happiness, of the hu- 
man race! 

There are some organizations narrower in their 
operations than the entire territory of a state, 

21 * 



246 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Formation of numerous Lyceums affords a twofold Encouragement. 

which deserve to be mentioned as among the en- 
couraging signs of the times. Prominent among 
these are the school systems of the cities of Boston, 
New York, and Philadelphia. They have already 
been the source of uncounted blessings to hundreds 
of thousands of human beings ; they are now es- 
tablished upon a firm basis, perfected by the experi- 
ence of many years, and conducted with enlight- 
ened zeal and liberality ; and may justly be 
regarded as among the " proudest monuments any 
people ever raised to the cause of learning, truth 
and virtue." 

3. The formation and flourishing condition of 
numerous lyceums afford to the friends of educa- 
tion encouragement of a twofold character ; they 
are indices of what has already been done — of the 
extent to which an interest in the subject now pre- 
vails ; and they are pledges of good things to come. 
They are both the effect and the cause of an in- 
crease of zeal and activity in the cause of educa- 
tion — reform. 

4. The example of other countries, the progress 
they have made in establishing and perfecting 
sound systems of primary education, are well fitted 
to cheer us on in the w^ork. " What has been done 
can be done," is a maxim which has grown old, 
because it is true. It seems to have been in most 
things silently acted upon by the United States, as 
a nation. It is rare that they allow themselves to 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 247 



The Example and Achievements of other Nations encouraging. 

be outstripped by other countries in any thing, es- 
pecially if it be a project having somewhat of tan- 
gible utility in it. It were well if this emulation, 
which seems natural to us as a people, could be 
extended to education. There is much in those 
systems of public instruction on the continent of 
Europe, to which reference has been repeatedly 
made, in the progress of this work, which might 
be advantageously copied by us. " Germany is 
our teacher, not merely in the matured national 
plan of Prussia so often referred to, but very gene- 
rally over the empire." France, too, is in some 
respects our teacher ; certainly in the zeal with 
which she entered upon the labour of reform in 
the establishment of a national system, in the spi- 
rit with which she prosecutes the work, and the 
liberality with which she expends for the support 
and perfection of her popular schools. 

5. It is an encouraging circumstance that po- 
pular education is not made a political question 
among us. It is a defect in our social system, a 
result which seems inseparable from a national 
organization such as ours, that almost every prac- 
tical question of importance, whether or not it has 
any inherent political bearing, mixes itself up with 
politics, and the success or failure of propositions 
growing out of it is made to hinge on political 
considerations. This appears to be the price of 



248 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 



Education not a political Q,uesti()n. Great encouragement in this. 

liberty, the penalty of self-government. How far 
the proper education of every individual in the 
community would go towards diminishing this 
price and removing the penalty, our children will 
perhaps be better able to judge than ourselves. 
At all events, it is fortunate that education is one 
of those few questions on which men of all parties 
can and do meet, and combine their efforts. This 
fact is a legitimate subject of congratulation, and 
is not the weakest of those grounds of encourage- 
ment and hope, which should inspire the breast 
with courage, and nerve the arm to vigorous 
action. In this particular we have the advantage 
of those who are battling in the same cause in 
Great Britain. The whole power of the ultra 
Tory party is there armed against all change, in 
education as in every thing else. 

6. The last in our list of encouragements, 
though not the least in influence and importance, 
is that the Press universally is in our favour ! If 
there are any exceptions to this remark, they are 
not known to me, and are at any rate too few in 
number to be of any account. This is alike true 
of the daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly jour- 
nals, in every part of our land. With one voice 
they have proclaimed and reiterated the solemn 
truth that — " If we fail by education to awake, 

GUIDE, confirm THE MORAL ENERGIES OF OUR PEO- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 249 

The Press in Favour of Education. Appeal to its Conductors. 

PLE, WE ARE LOST !" May this sentiment, so true 
in fact, so fearful in import, be echoed back by our 
whole people! May it be emblazoned on our ban- 
ners, inscribed on our halls of legislation, pro- 
claimed from the pulpit and the rostrum, imbibed 
by our children with the milk that nourishes their 
infancy, and written indelibly upon the tablet of 
our heart. 

To the conductors of the Press may I, without 
presumption, be permitted to say — Persevere in 
your advocacy of this noble cause, and redouble 
your efforts in it. You hold in your hands an in- 
strument of tremendous power. Wield it with 
caution; wield it with boldness; but above all, 
wield it for the blessing of your race. And in re- 
ference to the education of the people — that para- 
mount interest of a free state — let the voice of 
warning, of remonstrance, and of exhortation, 
never cease to be heard. Cry aloud, and spare 
not — till our desolate and w^aste places shall be- 
come like Eden, and the desert shall rejoice and 
blossom as the rose. 

And now, gentlemen, these hasty and imperfect 
Hints are drawing towards a close. I have gone 
over the whole ground which I proposed to my- 
self to occupy at the outset of my undertaking. I 
have treated of a subject which yields to no other 
in importance, in whichever of its relations you 



250 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Recapitulation of Topics discussed in the Work. 

choose to consider it ; would that I had possessed 
the talent to present its claims in a style and with 
an earnestness commensurate with that import- 
ance. I have brought to my task honesty of pur- 
pose, an ardent love for the cause I have endea- 
voured to advocate, the deepest convictions of its 
inseparable connexion with the best interests of 
man, and that measure of ability with which it has 
pleased Him who gives and withholds in wisdom, 
to endow me. Let us now pause, and briefly sur- 
vey the ground over which we have travelled. If 
I have not missed my aim, the following positions, 
among others, have been established : — 

Education is necessary for all classes, and for 
each individual in the community, especially in a 
government founded upon the popular will ; and it 
is the duty of such a government to take care that 
this great end be secured. 

The education established for the people, to be 
suitable, must be real, not verbal ; it must teach 
things primarily, ivords incidentally; it must culti- 
vate the faculties of observation and comparison, 
and communicate the art of reflection; it must 
educate the senses and the physical powers, and 
convey to the pupils a knowledge of the dignity 
of their nature, of their relations to other beings, 
of their rights and duties as men and citizens, of 
the progress of human affairs in different ages and 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 251 



Recapitulation continued. 



countries, and of the manifold and wonderful 
works of the Creator by which they are surround- 
ed ; in short, it must make them moral, reflective, 
independent in judgment and action, industrious, 
and religious. These high objects are not secured, 
as a general thing, by our present systems, and 
therefore a reform is necessary. 

Good schools cannot exist without good teach- 
ers. We have at present but few teachers pro- 
perly qualified, and cannot have without provision 
for their special training. A supply of competent 
instructors can be obtained only through the 
agency of teachers' seminaries. Institutions of 
this kind are indispensable, and ought to be forth- 
with established. Departments for the training of 
teachers engrafted on colleges and academies, 
would be better than nothing, but original, inde- 
pendent institutions are preferable. 

Teaching should be made a permanent business, 
and elevated to its proper rank among the other 
professions. In order to effect this, not only must 
the qualifications of teachers be elevated above 
their present standard, but their compensation 
must be greatly increased. It is now a mere pit- 
tance, not amounting in fact to as much as can 
be realized from any other employment. The 
country is able to pay liberally for education ; no- 
thing is wanting but the disposition. 



252 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Recapitulation Concluded. 

Notwithstanding the very great improvements 
that have been made of late years in school-books, 
other works of a higher order are still needed on 
some subjects; and on several branches of know- 
ledge that ought to be introduced as studies into 
our common schools, we have as yet no text-books 
at ail. Knowledge is the natural food of the mind, 
and the pursuit of it, prosecuted on proper princi- 
ples, is always a source of pleasure. Bad books, 
and worse modes of instruction, are the chief 
causes of the general aversion of the young to 
study. Our common schools ought all to be sup- 
plied with small but well selected libraries, with 
cabinets of natural history and mineralogy, and 
with apparatus for illustrating the simpler princi- 
ples of science. The location and architecture of 
school-houses have been greatly neglected, but 
deserve attention. Such an organic constitution 
should be given to a system of general education 
as will ensure its practical efficiency. 

Finally, various and formidable obstacles stand 
in the way of the improvements needed; but these 
are more than counterbalanced by facts and con- 
siderations of an encouraging character, which 
are sufficient to inspire the friends of education 
with courage and zeal, and to incite them to active 
exertion. 

If these positions have been sustained, or, whe- 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 253 

Our Duty to Posterity as inferred from the whole Discussion. 

ther they have or not, if they are true, they im- 
pose upon us duties of high import, requiring for 
their due performance, rare combinations of quaU- 
ties, and reaching in their effects through all coming 
time. We may not shrink from them, without 
incurring a fearful responsibility. The intelligent 
and conscientious discharge of these duties, is a 
debt which we owe to our children and to posteri- 
ty. It is shared by every citizen, but it rests with 
augmented claims upon those who are chosen to 
make our laws, and watch over our pubKc inte- 
rests. Could I indulge the hope that any appeal 
from so humble an individual would have aught of 
weight with the statesmen and legislators of the 
land, I would say to them — Consult for all the inte- 
rests of your constituents ; let none be overlooked, 
neglected, or forgotten ; but let the education of the 
people receive, as it deserves, your earliest, deep- 
est, and most unremitted attention. A system of 
popular schools, comprehensive in its range of 
studies, thorough in its modes of mental disciphne, 
and pure in its every influence, is the sheet-an- 
chor of our social system. It is the bond of 
our union, the ward and keeper of our consti- 
tution, the charter of our happiness, our safety, 
and our rights. " Other measures may change, 
and yield, and be forgotten, as the national mind 
changes or subsides beneath them ; but this is a 

22. 



254 HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Concluding Appeal to Statesmen and Legislators. 

measure which creates the national mind, which 
insures, by its firm and broad substructions, the 
solidity and durability of every other structure." 
You have provided for other interests, far inferior 
io importance to this, with clear-sighted wisdom, 
and corresponding liberality. You have made this 
country in many respects a leading member in the 
great brotherhood of nations. In her internal im- 
provements, her prisons, and her various and nu- 
merous public charities, she may challenge com- 
parison with the proudest of her competitors. Her 
civil and social institutions have excited the admira- 
tion of distant nations, and been made the theme of 
panegyric before their councillors and their senates. 
You, and all of us, are justly proud of these high ho- 
nours, and cherish the glory conferred upon our 
country by such exalted testimonies to her intelli- 
gence, her humanity, and her public spirit. But, like 
the young man in the Gospel, she lacks one thing ; 
and that, as in his case, is the most important. It is 
a broad, sound, liberal system of public instruction 
in each of her constituent members. I am not, 
indeed, insensible to the efforts already made, nor 
to the good actually accomplished ; and it would 
ill become me to disparage them. Some of you 
have nobly entered upon the good work of reform.* 

* The legislatures of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and 
some other states, have conamenced the work in earnest, and are 
prosecuting it with activity. 



HINTS ON POPULAR EDUCATION. 255 

Reward to be gained by providing for the EnJightenment of the People. 

Carry it forward, carry it forward, with a Spartan 
spirit of perseverance, to its full completion. Crown 
the honour of the nation. Establish every where 
schools for the people, multiply the sources of 
knowledge, lay deep and broad the foundations of 
enlightened systems of popular education; — -and 
your reward shall be in the consciousness of duty 
performed and benefits conferred ; posterity, to the 
latest age, shall bless your memory; and the glory 
of millennial illumination shall be hastened by your 
labours. ^ 



THE END, 



3477 5 



\s 



